Engineering to enhance human mobility, play, and exploration
The Steele Lab’s own Mia Hoffman was featured in an article, Wheels in motion: Improving mobility technologies for children, via the Department of Mechanical Engineering. This article highlighted her work on adapted ride-on cars in collaboration with Steele Lab Alumni Heather Feldner. Way to go, Mia!
The Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE) hosted a Research Showcase and Holiday party on December 12, 2023. CREATE’s mission is to make technology accessible and to make the world accessible through technology.
Steele Lab members, Kate, Victoria (Tori), and Charlotte presented posters at the CREATE Research Showcase to highlight design, development & research of tech to support individuals with disabilities.
Way to go, team!
BOOM! Kat Steele was recently a guest speaker on the fantastic podcast BOOM: Biomechanics On Our Minds hosted by Melissa Boswell and Hannah O’Day. Kat joined BOOM for their first episode of a four-part series discussing mobility, accessibility, and design.
Definitely give this episode a listen on SoundCloud, Spotify, or Apple Podcast, and follow along with the rest of the four-part series and all great BOOM content on the same podcast services.
boom. Boom. BOOM!
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.
Journal article in International Journal for Designs for Learning
Makerspaces provide the general community with a space to brainstorm, prototype, and create. Considering this, it is especially important to create a welcoming environment for individuals with diverse abilities, including individuals with disabilities.
To read the article in full, CLICK HERE.