The goals for this workshop are to identify pathways for technology to solve or mitigate accessibility and inclusion challenges in current and emerging workplaces. As an NSF Convergence Accelerator, participants will seek to identify pathways that could be pursued by multidisciplinary teams to get solutions at least to a prototype stage in 3-5 years. The long-term goals from this workshop are to set in motion paradigm shifts that brings the percentage of individuals with disabilities participating in the workforce closer to the general population.
Dr. Steele will be presenting some ideas on inclusion in the workplace – from work environments to transportation to workforce development.
We are proud to announce that Dr. Katherine M. Steele was selected as one of the 2020 DO-IT Trailblazers for her fantastic work in access engineering. Kat has been active in DO-IT, hosting activities where students learn about makerspace accessibility, engineering principles, and universal design. She has also developed resources and published articles with DO-IT staff on topics related to makerspace accessibility and teaching about accessibility in engineering. Please help us in congratulating Kat!
During Microsoft’s annual Ability Summit, they announced a new partnership with the University of Washington to establish the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology (CREATE) and kicked-off the collaboration with an inaugural investment of $2.5 million. CREATE is an interdisciplinary team whose mission is to make technology, and the world, more accessible.
The CREATE leadership will be comprised of six campus departments and three different colleges including the Steele lab’s own Heather Feldner and Katherine M. Steele. This fantastic news was featured on The Seattle Times and Greek Wire.
Get excited and help us congratulate Heather, Kat, and all those involved and cheer them on to CREATE!
These results suggest that control theory modeling can provide a platform to successfully quantify device performance in the absence of errors arising from motor impairments
Photo (top and bottom) of a user using a slider (top) and muscles (bottom) to control a cursor on the screen. (Top image) Side image of user. User rests their elbow and pinches the slider and moves the slider towards and away from their body to control the cursor. (Bottom image) Side image of user. User is strapped to a rigid device holding a bar with hands supinated towards the ceiling, with the forearms at a 90 degree angle from the upper arms. Electrodes are placed on the biceps and triceps and labelled. Arrows pointing up and down indicate that users move their arm up and down to control the cursor.
Background:Manual device interaction requires precise coordination which may be difficult for users with motor impairments. Muscle interfaces provide alternative interaction methods that may enhance performance, but have not yet been evaluated for simple (eg. mouse tracking) and complex (eg. driving) continuous tasks. Control theory enables us to probe continuous task performance by separating user input into intent and error correction to quantify how motor impairments impact device interaction
Aim: Propose and extend an experimental and analytical method to guide future development of accessible interfaces like muscle interfaces using control theory
Method: We compared the effectiveness of a manual versus a muscle interface for eleven users without and three users with motor impairments performing continuous tasks.
Results: Both user groups preferred and performed better with the muscle versus the manual interface for the complex continuous task.
Interpretation: Results suggest muscle interfaces and algorithms that can detect and augment user intent may be especially useful for future design of interfaces for continuous tasks.
Momona also gave a phenomenal talk on this paper last week in the University of Washington’s ‘DUB Shorts’ series (video posted below). Nice job Momona!
Dr. Kat Steele and lab alumni, Dr. Heather Feldner, were on the The Accessible Technologies & Inclusive Design Panel at the IdeaGen Global Innovation Summit hosted by Micrsofot on June 7, 2019. Scott Saponas served as the moderator, asking tough questions about how to encourage and expand inclusive design. A large portion of the summit celebrated the increasing inclusion of women in tech and entrepreneurial fields, while also highlighting the remaining barriers and challenges. We hope our panel also sparked reflection on ability as an important dimension of diversity that has important implications for the design and engineering of inclusive products, environments, and experiences.
The panel also included Dr. Jacob Wobbrock from UW and Oscar
Murillo from Microsoft. This was another reminder of the powerhouse of
accessibility researchers at UW and in the Seattle-area. An artist was
capturing the summit through illustration – the whole day (it looked amazing
and exhausting):
One of the challenging questions Scott asked was our favorite examples of successful inclusive design. I still find it disappointing that this is a challenging question. We have our classic examples – curb cuts, closed captioning, power toothbrushes, Oxo products – that have made life easier for many, but were originally conceptualized through the inclusion of individuals with diverse abilities.
There should be many more examples of success. This should be an easy question where we can quickly call to mind all of the outstanding examples in the world that celebrate the inclusion of individuals with diverse abilities in the design process and make our daily life more inclusive.
What are your
favorite examples of inclusive design?
What technologies make
you excited for a more inclusive world?
You can learn more, find resources, and join the community through AccessEngineering.
The fancy graphic from IdeaGen for serving on the panel.
