The Intersecting Liminality of Technology Adoption and Disability during Life Transitions

Despite the availability of assistive and aging-in-place technologies, many disabled and older individuals experience challenges adopting these tools. While factors such as usability, aesthetics, and support availability are known to influence technology adoption, we posit that life transitions (e.g., getting married, retiring, becoming a college student, moving to a new country) offer an unexplored lens for contextualizing technology adoption and use among older and disabled people. To investigate this, we conducted interviews with blind and low vision older adults, followed by a systematic literature survey of Accessible Computing literature focused on technology adoption and life transition experiences of people with disabilities (PWD). Through a qualitative analysis of 22 interviews and 42 papers, we found that (1) PWD experience life transitions around technology adoption, (2) PWD experience multiple concurrent life transitions, and (3) PWD navigate their life transitions via technology use and mutual aid with disabled and aging communities. We contribute the framework “Intersecting Liminality,” which explains the marginalizing experience of going through multiple life transitions while adopting or using technology. We contend that applying Intersecting Liminality generates nuanced insights about technology and life transitions that can inform the design of more effective assistive interventions.