UW CREATE

Category: Partners-industry

CREATE AI+Accessibility Hackfest – Winter ’24

March 6, 2024 – post-event update

In March 2024, CREATE gathered with industry and community partners for a hackfest to explore and invent the future of AI and Accessibility.

The event featured invited speakers Heather Nolis, Ian Stenseng, and Shaun Kane and exciting workshops on building custom GPT and creating accessible Jupyter notebooks. See the full lineup of brainstorming, hacking, and presentation sessions.

The 3-day hackfest attendees included those with no experience in coding or hacking, others with advanced experience in generative AI and building software or tools, and, at the center, attendees with lived experiences of disabilities who contributed their experiences and expertise to invent an accessible AI-enabled future.

Prizes awarded

While appreciation and congratulations go to all participants, these projects were awarded prizes:

First place: LookLoud.ai

Nishit Bhasin and Lakshya Garg

LookLoud.ai is voice-activated assistance technology, powered by GPT-4 Vision, and designed to make e-commerce accessible to everyone. Users can navigate, select, and buy products using simple voice commands. 

Second prize: AI Posture Monitor & Intervention Alerts for Home Health

Max Smoot, Lige Yang, and Richard Li

AI Posture Monitor & Intervention Alerts for Home Health monitors someone’s seated position to identify when they are in an at-risk posture and subsequently alerts a caretaker with recommended corrections.

Third prize: Formflow Ai

Abdul Hussein, Abreham Tegenge, and Aelaph Elias

Formflow.ai reads PDFs, mail, and forms and gives an easy-to-read summarization, with the goal of helping people read and understand documents and forms. 

Fourth place: Clearview Assist

Dhruv Khanna, Ritika Rajpal, Minal Naik, and Menita Agarwal

(No description provided.)

Fifth place: Student Success Portal

Mia Vong, Cameron Jacob Miller, Keyvyn Rogers, and Jerid Stevenot

Student Success Portal provides AI-powered assistance for challenges in supporting K-12 students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

Sessions, workshops and hack time

Friday

  • Introductory session about the potential of AI for accessibility (also on Zoom)
  • Invited speaker Ian Stenseng, Director of Innovation & Accessibility at The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc. (also on Zoom)
  • Brainstorming project ideas
    • Learn from community members with lived experiences of disabilities to make sure your hack is solving a real accessibility need.
  • Lunch (provided) and conversation, mentoring, team forming, idea hatching
  • Invited speaker Heather Nolis, Principal Machine Learning Engineer of the Digital AI Team and Chair of the Accessibility Community at T-Mobile (ACT) at T-Mobile (also on Zoom)
  • Optional Workshops and hack time
  • Hack time
  • Pizza dinner and opportunities to get feedback from mentors

Saturday

  • Work time
  • Lunch (provided) and opportunity to present for feedback from mentors
  • Presentation of judging rubric
  • Invited speaker, Shaun Kane, Researcher at Google AI and Director of the Superhuman Computing Lab at University of Colorado Boulder (also on Zoom)
  • Hack time

Sunday

  • Optional hack time
  • How to present accessibly & sample pitch presentation (also on Zoom)

Monday

  • Presentations to judges (also on Zoom)
  • Judges deliberation
  • Announcements, prizes, and closing keynote (also on Zoom)

Judges

Speakers

Workshops

Brainstorming ideas

Relevant topics will be driven by community needs to increase access to technology, and to the world through technology. These topics could include, for example:

  • AI’s use for generating plain language summaries of rights
  • Accessibility of AI tools and interfaces
  • Using AI to increase the accessibility of written and visual content
  • Robotic control for access
  • Tools for designing accessible physical objects
  • Using AI to get feedback on the accessibility of things you’re making
  • AI for embodied agent interactions
  • AI applications for health and wellbeing
  • Modalities for human/generative AI interactions such as voice or touch
  • Guidelines or ideas around agents that that may be used for accessibility
  • What disability simulation might look like in the age of AI agents
  • Best practices and pitfalls

Virtual Traffic Stop App Aims to Ease Tensions, Aid Communication

October 2, 2023

The designers of the Virtual Traffic Stop app aim to ease tensions and prevent misunderstandings between drivers and law enforcement during traffic stops. For Hard-of-Hearing or Deaf drivers, the app can be used to communicate with law enforcement via chat during the video. Users can add family members and invite them to the chat for additional assistance.

A Gainesville Florida K-12 school has announced their endorsement of Virtual Traffic Stop and has encouraged parents and their children to sign up and start using the app. Currently, the app is being used by the University of Florida and Gainesville Florida police departments.

If your community is interested in using the app, contact Dr. Juan E. Gilbert, a former CREATE Advisory Board member and Chair of the Human-Centered Computing Department at the University of Florida, by calling 352-392-1527 or emailing juan@ufl.edu.

Accessible eSports Showcase 2023: Event Recap

In April 2023, CREATE hosted its first ever Accessible eSports Showcase event, bringing together members of the CREATE community, local community organizations, tech and games Corporate Partners, and folks from all over the Seattle area looking to learn about and celebrate ongoing strides being made in making video games more inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities.

Zillow Commons in the Bill & Melinda Gates Center was transformed into a gamer’s playground with big-screen projections of racing and party games, a VR space, and stations where users could customize their own adaptive gaming tech.

UW CREATE Presents: Accessible eSports Showcase 2023 with a colorful digital background.

CREATE’s Community Partners had showcase tables, demoing the latest advances in accessible gaming technology. And UW graduate students, undergraduates, and postdocs highlighted the many creative ways they’ve worked to make games accessible:

  • Event co-organizers Jesse Martinez (Ph.D. student, CSE) and Momona Yamagami (Postdoc, UW CREATE) opened with an overview of the many accommodations and community access norms they established for the event.
  • Emma McDonnell (Ph.D. Student, HCDE) live-narrated a round of Jackbox Games’s Fibbage, followed by a competitive mixed-ability showdown in the Xbox racing game DiRT 5, in which Martinez, taking his turn as emcee/color commentator, highlighted the many techniques being used to make Xbox gameplay accessible.
  • Rachel Franz (Ph.D. Student, iSchool) let attendees try out her latest work in accessible VR research.
  • Jerry Cao (Ph.D. Student, CSE) showed attendees how to use custom 3D-printed input devices for computer accessibility.
  • A brilliant team of undergraduates from HuskyADAPT, including Mia Hoffman, Neha Arunkumar, Vivian Tu, Spencer Madrid, Simar Khanuja, Laura Oliveira, Selim Saridede, Noah Shalby, and Veronika Pon, demoed three fantastic projects working to bring improved switch access to video games.
Momona Yamagami and Jesse Martinez open the Accessible eSports Showcase in front of a large screen with a dedicated screen showing a sign language interpreter.

Corporate and Community Partners connected with the CREATE community and engage directly with our many attendees.

  • Solomon Romney, of Microsoft’s Inclusive Tech Lab, showcased the brilliant design of the Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC), the state-of-the-art tool in accessible controller design, and guided attendees through setting up and playing with their own XACs.
  • Amber Preston of Seattle Adaptive Sports described the work SAS does to make all sorts of games and recreational activities more accessible and inclusive in the Seattle area.
  • Other corporate and community partners, including researchers from Meta, Google, and Apple, were on hand to meet and connect with attendees around other exciting developments in the accessible gaming space.
Three student members at the HuskyADAPT table, sharing information and video about the program.
The Seattle Adaptive Sports table, with the different size balls used in games and a screen showing video of disabled athletes playing.

The organizers thank all attendees, partners, volunteers, and organizers for making the event such a success! As gaming accessibility continues to blossom, we’re looking forward to doing more events like in the future – we hope to see you at the next one! 

Pre-event announcement

Who should attend?

Anyone is welcome to attend this event! In particular, we extend the invitation to anyone who has an interest in video game accessibility, who works in the games industry, or who is a member of the Seattle-area disability community.

More information about the event will be available here soon! In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our event co-organizer Jesse Martinez at jessejm@cs.washington.edu. We hope to see you there!

Stipend and paid parking for non-UW-affiliated attendees

For our attendees with disabilities who are not affiliated with UW, we will have a $50 stipend to cover local travel and time spent at the event. You will receive a gift card link within 10 business days after the event. We will also pay for event parking. We hope that will be helpful in covering some of the costs of attending this event.

Activities

Mainstage gameplay

Attendees can go head-to-head in our accessible esports tournament that will include Forza Horizon 5 and Rocket League.

Spotlight tables

Engage with CREATE corporate and community partners around game accessibility, including Seattle Adaptive Sports, Microsoft XBox, HuskyADAPT, and UW CREATE. Participate in accessible gaming tech demos, and more!

Non-competitive gameplay

In addition to the mainstage gameplay, there will be various accessible video games available to play, ranging from cooperative games to streamed large-audience party games. We’ll also have a VR station available! Games will include

  • Jackbox Party Pack Games
  • Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
  • Beat Saber

Socializing, networking and food

We will also have designated spaces for attendees to socialize with each other and make new connections in the accessible gaming space. Dinner will be provided.

Accessibility & logistics

Wheelchair-accessible space & accommodations

The building entrance is level from Stevens Way and Zillow Commons is wheelchair-accessible via the elevator and wide doorways. A volunteer will be at the building entrance to help guide you to the event.

We will have the following accommodations in place:

  • Live gameplay commentary on Mainstage gameplay
  • Captions and ASL interpretation for all Mainstage content
  • Quiet room with ample seating and a silent livestream of Mainstage gameplay
  • Complimentary food and beverages
  • Screen reader-accessible online event program/guide

Adaptive devices

For those interested in playing games, we will have the following devices:

  • Xbox Adaptive Controllers with customizable switches, joysticks, and foot pedals
  • Additional specialty gaming equipment provided by industry partners (TBD)

If you have any additional accommodation requests, please include them in your event registration, or reach out to Jesse Martinez at jessejm@cs.washington.edu.

Considerations to keep in mind  

During the event, attendees can support each other with the following considerations:

  • Introduce yourself by name in a conversation.
  • Keep pathways clear, and be mindful of others when navigating the space.
  • DO NOT touch other attendees, their assistive devices, or their mobility devices without consent.
  • Please keep conversation family-friendly as there are children at the event.
  • Please wear a mask and keep your hands clean (hand sanitizer is available throughout the venue).

Questions?

Please reach out to Jesse Martinez (event co-organizer) at jessejm@cs.washington.edu with questions about this event.

Community Day & Research Showcase 2022

CREATE’s 2nd Annual Community Day took place on June 8th and was a tremendous success. With over 100 registered participants and presenters, this year’s event demonstrates strong growth, returning to in-person (and also virtual) panel discussions and a research showcase of 14 project teams.

This year’s panels addressed the disproportionate impact of access to assistive technology on children with disabilities in BIPOC and immigrant communities as well as the issues that arise with the intersection of accessibility and biometric technologies. We were honored to host panelists from the AHSHAY Center, Provail, Open Doors for Multicultural Families, UW’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, and the University of Maryland’s iSchool.

Learn more:

CREATE Community Day & Research Showcase 2021

CREATE Community Day 2021, held on June 8, was a rich program that included an important discussion of the concerns and approaches to just, sustainable accessibility research that puts the needs of community members with disabilities front and center. Following this discussion, CREATE members highlighted what their labs are doing, with time to hear about a variety of individual projects. Here are some highlight videos of a small sample of the presentations:

Visual semantic understanding in blind and low-vision technology users
“I can bonk people!”: Effects of modified ride on cars on communication and socio-emotional development in children with disabilities
Blocks4All, an accessible blocks-based programming language
Decoding Intent With Control Theory: Comparing Muscle Versus Manual Interface Performance


Just one day later, the Future of Access Technology class held their final presentations. This class was designed to engage students in active contribution to the disability community, and included assignments to audio-describe videos for YouDescribe.org; try to address bugs within the NVDA open source screen reader community; and build first-person informed final projects on a wide range of topics, including:

  • Improved Word Alt Text plug-in modifies the default behavior in Microsoft PowerPoint when an image is inserted such that the user is prompted with a dialog box that guides them to create alt text that is high quality and contextually relevant to the image’s intended use.
    video preview | website
  • VSCodeTalk project implements a Visual Studio Code extension of CodeTalk, which  makes Visual Studio more accessible to visually impaired developers.
    video preview | website
  • Input Macros project makes it possible to easily add text shortcuts (e.g., “ty” automatically becomes “thank you”) in both Word and on the Web.
    video preview | website
  • Non-verbal Captioning project provides a SnapChat filter that explores how non-verbal captioning in video meeting applications can support DHH and other captioning users.
    video preview | website
  • Signal Monitoring for Accessibility for mobile and hardware programming makes serial port signal data, such as that generated by an Arduino system, accessible to BLV developers. Data can be copied to the system clipboard and audible cues are fired on significant events in the input data stream.
    video preview | website

Accessible CS Education workshop focuses on inclusive experiences

Amid a global pandemic, innovative thinkers have been hard at work developing plans to improve equity in modern learning environments. The Accessible Computer Science Education Fall Workshop was held November 17-19, 2020, and jointly sponsored by Microsoft, The Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities, and CREATE.

Each day of the event focused on strategies to improve classroom experiences for students and faculty with disabilities. You can watch recorded sessions where speakers provided a wide range of perspectives on computer science pedagogy and how to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in computing disciplines.

Two students work together in a lab on a computer screen using accessibility tools

Two students work together on a computer screen using accessibility tools.

The event provided an intimate environment to share work and establish new collaborations. The most visible result, for now, is five white papers and action plans taken from the break-out group reports (CREATE faculty contributors noted):

The program resulted in more than conversations; each group developed formal white papers and action plans that will guide future research and collaboration.

Microsoft logo

Throughout the workshop, participants focused on four areas:

  1. Education for employment pathways
  2. Making K-12 computing education accessible
  3. Making higher education in computing accessible
  4. Building accessible hardware and systems.

Conversations generated ideas about technologies that can boost employment and assist people with disabilities who experience barriers in various learning environments.

The committee behind the event successfully cultivated a productive and inclusive atmosphere that sponsors hope will translate to future projects. Members of the committee include Andrew Begel, Heather Dowty, Cecily Morrison, Teddy Seyed, and Roy Zimmerman from Microsoft; Anat Caspi and Richard Ladner from UW CREATE; and Clayton Lewis from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Caspi to lead collaborative $11.45M Transportation Data Equity Initiative

Tools like Google Directions and OneBusAway give up-to-date travel and transit information to make regional transit easier for most. But mobility applications focus on efficiency and shortest paths, leaving out information critical to people with disabilities, older adults, and anybody needing more support.

The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, led by CREATE Associate Director for Translation Anat Caspi, and the UW’s Washington State Transportation Center will work with Microsoft, Google, the Washington Department of Transportation and other public and private partners to develop transit mobility technology as part of the Transportation Data Equity Initiative.

A bright pink placard with a wheelchair user icon and the words Step Free Route planted in bright green grass

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the project $11.45 million in January as part of a program focused on promoting independent mobility for all.

Anat Caspi, CREATE Director for Translation and Affiliate Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

“Transportation and mobility play key roles in the struggle for civil rights and equal opportunity. Affordable and reliable transportation allows people access to important opportunities in education, employment, health care, housing and community life,” said project lead Anat Caspi.

“Our goal is to translate the UW’s accessible technology research and data science products into real-world use, building technology foundations for good and avoiding repetition of exclusion patterns of the past or creation of new travel barriers to individuals.”

This article was excerpted from the UW News. Read the full article.

Forbes’ Mindset Matters highlights CREATE as the innovation industry needs

Jonathan Kaufman, in Forbes magazine’s Mindset Matters column, calls for innovation to make workplaces inclusive and accessible. In his May 31, 2020 column, An Object Lesson For Business, And Innovation In The Age Of A Pandemic, he highlights the partnership between CREATE and Microsoft as a prime example of how we can “redefine the very nature of work and develop the tools needed to create a culture of innovation.”

“It is at this moment that offers organizational leadership a means to reframe the status that disability plays in how we redefine the very nature of work and develop the tools needed to create a culture of innovation and cultivate a management strategy that embraces the needs of individual employees to be more productive and in turn give back to the collective goals of the company.”

Jonathan Kaufman, Forbes magazine

    New UW center bankrolled by Microsoft aims to make technology more accessible to disabled people

    The Seattle Times | May 28, 2020

    University of Washington professor Jacob Wobbrock figures the best way to make technology more accessible to disabled people is to anticipate their needs from the very beginning. “The world we live in is built on certain assumptions,’’ Wobbrock said. “If we question those assumptions right from the start when we design things, then suddenly things are accessible.’’

    The Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experience (CREATE) is launching with a nine-member, interdisciplinary faculty led by Wobbrock and co-director Jennifer Mankoff. 

    Read full Seattle Times article.

    Microsoft invests $2.5M in CREATE, a new center for accessible tech at the University of Washington

    GeekWire | May 28, 2020

    Microsoft and the UW have long been aligned in a shared commitment to accessible technology and a world that is more accessible through technology. With a leadership team from six campus departments in three different colleges, CREATE will build upon the UW’s existing work in education, research and translation.

    Read the full GeekWire article.

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

    $2.5 million inaugural investment from Microsoft launches CREATE

    CREATE News | May 28, 2020
    UW 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 generate the full funding needed to provide long-term support for the Center. 

    Learn more:

    UW students join Teach Access Study Away program

    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 these companies are making their products and services more accessible and usable. One of the UW students will join Microsoft as a software engineer at the end of the 2019-20 academic year and another two will join Microsoft as 2020 summer interns. 

    Read more