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People and News

Author: Liz Diether-Martin

UW launches new Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences with $2.5 million investment from Microsoft

UW iSchool Ph.D. candidate Martez Mott works on Smart Touch technology with Ken Frye at Provail

UW News | May 28, 2020 The University of Washington today announced the establishment of the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). Fueled by a $2.5 million inaugural investment from Microsoft, UW CREATE is led by an interdisciplinary team whose mission is to make technology accessible and to make the world accessible through technology. The center will build upon current projects in prioritizing and automating personalization, transitioning transportation to be accessible; augmenting abilities through wearable technologies; developing inclusive,…

$2.5 million inaugural investment from Microsoft launches CREATE

CREATE News | May 28, 2020UW president Ana Mari Cauce, with Brad Smith, Tim Shriver and Jennifer Mankoff, announced the new center and Microsoft’s investment at the Microsoft Ability Summit on May 28. With a mission to make technology accessible and to make the world accessible through technology, Microsoft’s support will build upon current projects in accessible transportation, augmenting abilities, inclusive design, and “do-it-yourself” technology. The company’s endorsement of the UW’s accessibility work promises to catalyze additional investment, which, ultimately, could…

An app for everything, but can everyone use it?

Graph: Of 8901 apps, 23 percent were missing labels on most icons and images. Another 23% of apps did have labels.

Medium | May 26, 2020 For most of us, the day seems to revolve around our phones: check email, read the news, pay bills, and get directions to the store. Mobile apps are essential in day-to-day life. Unfortunately, many apps fail to be fully accessible to people with disabilities or those who rely on assistive technologies. As one blind app user noted, using an inaccessible app is “a constant feeling of being devalued. It doesn’t matter about the stupid button that…

UW Disability Studies, D Center win UW Medicine CLIME Grant

UW faculty and staff affiliated with CREATE, UW Disability Studies and the UW D Center have received a grant from the Center for Leadership and Innovation in Medical Education (CLIME) to explore what it means to be an ally to people with disabilities. “This is an integral issue informing professional education in the medical fields as well as in design and engineering, says PI Heather Feldner. “I am most excited that this project has the potential to further the conversation about how an…

Kat Steele honored by students with FACET award

Kat Steele with students in lab

April 2020 Kat Steele, CREATE Associate Director and the Albert S. Kobayashi Endowed Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received a 2020 Faculty Appreciation for Career Education & Training (FACET) award from appreciative students. Presented by the Career Center @ Engineering, the award recognizes faculty members who have positively impacted their career and professional development.

Four CREATE faculty receive Google Research Awards

UW News | March 16, 2020 Four UW CREATE faculty have been named recipients of Google Faculty Research Awards. The grants, among 150 Google recently announced, support world-class technical research in computer science, engineering and related fields. Each award provides funding to support one graduate student for a year. The recipients are Jennifer Mankoff, James Fogarty and Jon Froelich of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and Leah Findlater of the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. The goal of the awards is “to identify and strengthen…

Accessibility

We strive to make our events as accessible as possible, including using video conferencing with automated captions, supporting people in using text or voice to join the conversations, and working with disability services to address any other accommodations. We welcome any ongoing feedback on how best to create an accessible experience.

ASSETS Paper Impact Award

Jacob Wobbrock honored for improving touch-screen accessibility Congratulations to Jacob O. Wobbrock, a founding co-director of CREATE, for his work with Shaun Kane, PhD ’11 and Jeffrey Bigham, PhD ’09 improving the accessibility of mobile technology. The team received the 2019 SIGACCESS ASSETS Paper Impact Award for their 2008 paper, “Slide Rule: Making mobile touch screens accessible to blind people using multi-touch techniques.” The award is given biennially by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing and recognizes…

With AI and other tech, Anat Caspi focuses on helping people with disabilities

CREATE Director for Translation Anat Caspi shares her research goals and inspiration, including the value of her first programming class and her perspective as a parent. In her role as the director of the University of Washington’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, Caspi creates technology focused on people with disabilities such as motor limitations, in many instances applying artificial intelligence (AI). “It’s really about treating people as humans with different needs and preferences,” she says. She sees the mapping of pedestrian…

With AI and other tech, Anat Caspi focuses on helping people with disabilities

a table that uses sensors and cameras to understand and adjust to the needs of its users by swiveling and tilting

The Seattle Times | August 4, 2019 In her role as the director of the University of Washington’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, Caspi creates technology focused on people with disabilities such as motor limitations, in many instances applying artificial intelligence (AI). “It’s really about treating people as humans with different needs and preferences,” she said as a cyclist passing by rang a bell. She sees the mapping of pedestrian infrastructure — walkways, sidewalks, overpasses, underpasses and trails — as a necessary…

UW students join Teach Access Study Away program

Richard Ladner, mentor, and 5 UW students at Study Away Silicon Valley

May 25, 2019 Five University of Washington students, joining a group of 25 students from 7 different universities, traveled to Silicon Valley in May 2019 to participate in the Teach Access program Study Away Silicon Valley (SASV). Professor Ladner served as one of six faculty mentors for the small group projects that participating students completed during the five days of SASV.  The students visited the accessibility teams at Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Verizon Media Group (Yahoo!), and Facebook, where they learned how each of…

Richard Ladner, Director for Education

Richard Ladner, Founder of AccessComputing and Allen School faculty member

I am interested in accessibility technology research, especially technology for deaf, deaf-blind, hard-of-hearing, and blind people. Active in promoting the inclusion of persons with disabilities in computing fields, I am the Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation funded AccessComputing and AccessCSforAll. Affiliations: Professor Emeritus, Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering Principal Investigator, AccessComputing Principal Investigator, AccessCSforAll Contact Ladner faculty page ladner@cs.washington.edu 206-543-9347 Google Scholar Research highlights ASL-STEM Forum ASL-STEM Forum is a website for scientists who know American…

Jennifer Mankoff, Director

CREATE Director Dr. Jennifer Mankoff’s research focuses on accessibility broadly speaking. “In doing this work, I emphasize values such as intersectionality, and perspectives such as disability studies. For example, in the domain of Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) technology, I am exploring how people who are multilingual engage with communication technology. Another focus of my work is creating general tools so that anyone can use them, such as 3D printing, knitting, and other fabrication technologies. I have led the effort to better understand both clinical and do-it-yourself (DIY) stakeholders’ use of fabrication technologies, and developed better, more usable tools for production. Together, these can enhance the capabilities and participation of all users in today’s manufacturing revolution.”

Mark Harniss, Associate Director

CREATE Associate Director, Dr. Mark Harniss’ research focuses on knowledge translation, assistive technology, and accessible design. He teaches in both the Disability Studies Program and the Rehabilitation Medicine doctoral program with an emphasis on knowledge translation and disability policy. Harniss leads projects focused on developing decision aids to support people with disabilities to request reasonable accommodations and on developing an accommodation expert support system for people who are aging.

Anat Caspi, Associate Director

CREATE Associate Director, Dr. Anat Caspi is interested in exploring ways in which collaborative commons and cooperation can challenge and transform the current economics of assistive technology and incentivize rapid development and deployment of ethically built accessible technologies. Her research focuses on engineering machine intelligent solutions for customizable real-time, responsive technologies in the context of work, play and urban street environments.

Heather Feldner, Associate Director

CREATE Associate Director, Dr. Heather Feldner’s focus is on advancing participation and health together with people with disabilities and their families by exploring the intersections between mobility, disability, and technology in a variety of personal and environmental contexts. Her research centers on the design and implementation of mobility assistive technology, including how perceptions of disability and identity emerge and evolve through technology use.

Leah Findlater, Associate Director

CREATE Associate Director, Dr. Leah Findlater is interested in how to create technologies that adapt to accommodate individual user needs and preferences, whether to improve basic interactions such as touchscreen text entry or more complex tasks such as working with machine learning models. My research goal is to ensure that the next generation of computing technologies are designed to meet the needs of the broadest range of users.

James Fogarty, Associate Director

CREATE Associate Director, Dr. James Fogarty’s broad research interests are in Human-Computer Interaction, User Interface Software and Technology, and Ubiquitous Computing. His focus is on developing, deploying, and evaluating new approaches to the human obstacles surrounding widespread everyday adoption of ubiquitous sensing and intelligent computing technologies.

Katherine M. Steele, Associate Director

CREATE Associate Director, Dr. Katherine M. Steele’s research focuses on using novel computational and experimental tools to understand human movement and improve treatment and quality of life of individuals with cerebral palsy, stroke, and other neurological disorders. Steele’s research strives to connect engineering and medicine to create solutions that can advance our understanding of human ability, but also translate research results to the clinic and daily life.