In this issue we share research news, faculty and student awards, insights, and upcoming events.
|
|
|
What do we mean by "accessibility research"?
|
|
|
While accessibility research has increased significantly in recent years, what counts as accessibility research and how it’s collected and analyzed isn’t clearly defined. Kelly Mack, a Ph.D. student in the Allen School, summarized a research paper that examines the accessibility community’s research norms and trends in a post under HCI & Design at UW on Medium.
The research paper, authored by Kelly Mack, Emma McDonnell, Dhruv Jain, Lucy Lu Wang, and CREATE directors Jon E. Froehlich and Leah Findlater, found a heavy focus on people who are blind or have low vision (BLV). And while participants with disabilities or older adults were almost always engaged with in papers, people without disabilities were sometimes included to serve as stakeholders, proxies, or as performance comparison points.
|
|
|
|
CREATE submits RFI on disability bias in biometrics
|
|
|
|
Feldner 'wrote the books' on Permobil's power mobility devices for babies and toddlers
|
|
|
CREATE Associate Director Heather Feldner has co-authored two open-source guidebooks that instruct caregivers, researchers and clinicians on how to introduce Permobil’s Explorer Mini mobility device to young children between the ages of 12 and 36 months.
Feldner and co-authors synthesized their own work and work from pioneers in the field to document the benefits and impact of on-time access to mobility and evidence-based strategies for introducing powered mobility to young children based on developmental and experiential learning stages.
|
|
|
|
BLOCKS4ALL teaches basic programming concepts by teaching a robot to dance
|
|
|
Lauren Milne, a former Ph.D. student of CREATE Director for Education Richard Ladner and a professor at Macalester College, led a team of undergraduate students to create two Hour of Code activities. The activities are accessible to blind children using the Blocks4All programming environment on the IPad and involve writing programs to control a Dash Robot in doing several tasks. One activity is geared toward grades K-5 and the other grades 6-8.
BLOCKS4ALL and Dash are partners in two “Dash Joins a Dance Circle” lessons for Hour of Code.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jacob O. Wobbrock named ACM Fellow
|
|
|
Congratulations to CREATE Co-Director Jacob O. Wobbrock on this honor from the Association for Computing Machinery for his contributions to human-computer interaction and accessible computing! Jake is the primary creator of ability-based design, which scrutinizes the ability assumptions embedded in technologies in an effort to create systems better matched to what people can do.
|
|
|
|
Richard Ladner named AAAS Fellow
|
|
|
We congratulate CREATE Director for Education Richard Ladner on being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)! Richard was recognized for his advocacy and inclusion efforts for people with disabilities in computer science and related fields. His work has included development of numerous tools to perform specific tasks, including translating textbook figures into formats accessible to persons with disabilities, and enabling people to communicate via cell phones using American Sign Language.
|
|
|
|
Feldner and Harniss receive award for work on allyship training in rehabilitation education
|
|
|
CREATE Associate Director Heather Feldner and co-authors, including CREATE affiliate faculty Mark Harniss, received a blue ribbon award as one of the top 3 posters for Social Responsibility at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Combined Sections meeting this month. Selected by the Health Policy & Administration Section Global Health Special Interest Group of the APTA, the team was cited for their work to amplify the voices and experiences of students, staff, and faculty who identify as disabled/with a disability across UW campuses.
|
|
|
|
CREATE faculty Maya Cakmak named a DO-IT Trailblazer
|
|
|
Maya Cakmak was named a 2021 Trailblazer by the University of Washington’s Disabilities, Internetworking, and Technology Center (DO-IT). The Trailblazer award highlights DO‑IT community members who forge new pathways that will increase the potential of people with disabilities to succeed in college, careers, and community life. Cakmak has hosted week-long workshops related to robotics for DO-IT’s Summer Study program and has hosted AccessComputing students learning about research in computer science.
Congratulations, Dr. Cakmak!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Honorable mention for Jerry Cao
|
|
|
Jerry Cao, a senior in computer science and applied mathematics who works with CREATE Co-Director Jennifer Mankoff in the Make4all Lab, won an Honorable Mention Award from the Computing Research Association’s 2022 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards. Jerry’s research focuses on utilizing fabrication and computer science to make healthcare technologies more affordable and accessible to the general populous. His projects include generating optimized 3D-printable tactile maps and designing a cheap, unobtrusive continuous blood pressure monitor.
|
|
|
|
Nayha Auradkar receives Outstanding Engineer Scholarship
|
|
|
Nayha Auradkar, a B.S./M.S. student in the Allen School has won the Allen AI Outstanding Engineer Scholarship for Women and Underrepresented Minorities from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). Nayha conducts accessibility research in the Make4All Lab with CREATE Co-Director and Allen School professor Jennifer Mankoff. She has already published two papers: one aimed at analyzing the features of personal protective equipment in response to the pandemic and the other focused on automating the process of creating complex textured knitting objects to make it easier for people with mobility-related disabilities to knit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hold the date: Community Day on Wednesday, June 8
|
|
|
Community Day brings together CREATE partners, students, researchers and leadership for panel discussions and a research showcase. Check out last year's program and research showcase videos.
|
|
|
|
Spring Accessibility Research Seminar
|
|
|
|
|
CREATE’s mission is to make technology accessible, and to make the world accessible through technology.
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright 2022, Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences, University of Washington
Contact us: create-contact@uw.edu
Any UW student or faculty researcher working on accessibility of or through technology can join UW CREATE. We "converse" through Slack (uwcreate.slack.com, visible to UW emails), share news through email messages and the CREATE website, and are active on Twitter: @uwcreate.
|
|
|
Mailing address: Paul G. Allen Center, Room AC 101, 185 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle WA 98195-2350
|
|
|
|
.png){kind=icon}
.png){kind=logo}
