Designing Technology for Low Literacy Individuals
Speaker: Dr. Francisco Iacobelli,
Loyola University Chicago
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
6:00 PM to 7:00 PM Chicago Time
Online Event
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Speaker: Dr. Francisco Iacobelli,
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Designing Technology for Low Literacy Individuals
In the U.S., over 30 million people cannot read beyond very basic text (such as recipes or driving directions). However, most AI systems are geared toward individuals with high literacy skills. Two questions arise from this:
Is this a divide worth tackling?
Can we rely on the same one-size-fits-all approaches that large language models (LLMs) provide?
This talk focuses on AI interfaces for individuals with low literacy. In particular, it presents one we built for breast cancer survivorship education, which we tested with a few users to gather first impressions.
We are quickly realizing that low-literacy individuals are not a monolith. Perhaps we don’t need a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather a more nuanced approach—one that leverages large language models as well as cultural models.
Dr. Francisco Iacobelli is a Computer Scientist with a research focus at the intersection between human-computer interaction, equitable AI, and health disparities. He is an associate professor in the department of Health Informatics and Data Science and in the department of Surgery at Loyola University Chicago.
In particular, he has been working on the application of artificial intelligence to applications that are purposefully designed for low-literacy Latino populations. This involves research in language models specifically designed for minority populations, as well as conversational agents that are culturally appropriate to impact minority populations.
Agenda:
(Chicago local Time)
6:00pm - Brief introductions
6:05pm - Talk by Dr. Francisco Iacobelli
6:45 pm – Q&A
7:00 pm - end
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