Looking for courses that include curriculum about accessibility? Start here, then confirm availability and logistics in the UW course catalog, MyPlan, and the department course listings.
CSE 340 – Interaction Programming »
- Accessibility assignment and related learnings
User interfaces for computing systems, including principles and implementation techniques. Covers key topics and programming paradigms for interactive systems, such as event handling; graphical layout, design, and widgets; undo; accessibility; and context awareness. Provides experience with modern application domains and frameworks (e.g., mobile applications).
Quarter: Autumn
CSE 440 – Introduction to HCI »
- Lecture on accessibility
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) theory and techniques. Methods for designing, prototyping, and evaluating user interfaces to computing applications. Human capabilities, interface technology, interface design methods, and interface evaluation tools and techniques.
Prerequisite: CSE 332
Quarter: Winter
CSE 482 – Capstone Software Design to Empower Underserved Populations »
Students work in teams to design and implement a software project involving multiple areas of the CSE curriculum, for the purpose of empowering marginalized or underserved populations.
Quarter: Not currently offered
CSE 482 course details in MyPlan (UW ID required)
CSE 493e – Accessibility »
Starting Autumn 2023, CSE 493e – Special Topics in Accessibility will explore how computing can enable new solutions to accessibility, including both access to the world and access to computers. Similarly, the course will investigate how a disability-led perspective can guide us in the development of empowering and relevant solutions to accessibility problems. Both topics will be addressed through a combination of discussions, reading, and building.
Quarter: Autumn
CSE 513e – Disability Inclusion & Accessibility for Technologists »
A new (in Spring 2024) breadth class for CSE graduate students, the project-based course explores new solutions to accessibility through computing. Students take a disability studies perspective and gain valuable insights into the future of all user interface technology. The course includes creating accessible documents, websites and apps; accessibility in fabrication; AR/VR and AI/ML, and looks at intersectional concerns such as healthcare and sustainability.
Quarter: Not currently offered
CS 513e course description | CS 513e MyPlan
CSE 590w – Accessibility Research Seminar »
The seminar is for students and faculty members to explore research in accessible computing for people with disabilities in the context of human-computer interaction (HCI). The seminar consists of short student presentations of current research results, followed by discussion and critical evaluations the research. Topics vary by quarter.
Quarter: Autumn, Winter, Spring
CREATE description | CS 590w course description | CSE 590w time schedule (UW ID required)
DISST – Disabilities Studies courses »
Disability Studies is a multi-disciplinary field that investigates, critiques, and enhances Western society’s understandings of disability.
Disabilities Studies course descriptions | UW course catalog
DIS ST 391 – Disability and Society: A Focus on the Community
Explore what it means to provide access and disability justice for community members in recreation spaces. Jason Naranjo, a Disability Studies core faculty, has partnered with the Outdoors for All Foundation to create Summer and Winter courses that combine classroom time and outdoor experiences. In the field, students support access to rock climbing, paddle sports, cycling, and snow sports.
- Learning while playing in the great outdoors, ArtSci Perspectives, 1/25
- UW course looks at justice and accessibility on skis, UW Video, 1/23
- Hitting the snow with a new course on accessibility and disability justice, UW News, 1/23
DISST 300 – Disability Studies in Education »
Examine history, theory, values, and assumptions about disability to develop a critical understanding of how disability is situated in the contexts of schools and society. Explore how disability is defined within our educational system and in society at large. Weekly guest speakers share their lived experiences and perspectives on the topics at hand (scholars, teachers, parents, students, and activists). Focus is historical and theoretical foundations for defining disability; disability in the context of public schooling; and the relationship between disability, social change, and equitable access to opportunity.
Quarter: Summer
DISST 300 MyPlan | DISST 300 syllabus
DISST 332 – Disability & Society: A Focus on Community and the Outdoors »
Community-based, applied learning in disability studies by making outdoor play and recreation accessible to people with disabilities. In partnership with the Outdoors For All Foundation and through service-learning, academic texts, and contemporary media explore: access and barriers to inclusive play and recreation; allyship and social change; and the importance of outdoor play and recreation across the lifespan. Choice of activities depend on student’s experience with activities offered and our partner’s needs.
Quarter: Winter, Summer
DISST 332 MyPlan | DISST 332 syllabus | UW News article (2023) | Intro video: winter
DISST 360 – Redesigning Humanity: Disability in Speculative Fiction »
Analyze science fiction texts centering stories and novels by Black disabled authors and several films that use speculative settings and nonrealist conventions to comment on contemporary social issues and bioethical debates. Focus is on the connection between speculative fiction, the field of disability studies (DS), and the work of BIPOC and queer Disability Justice (DJ) activists and scholars. Consider representations of disability and neurodivergence, including intersections of racism and ableism, in which authors and readers create new meanings of accessibility, identity, community, family, justice, normal, and human.
Quarter: Summer
DISST 360 MyPlan | DISST 360 syllabus
DISST / HSTCMP 402 & 502 – Topics in Disability »
Hybrid course to center disability in historical inquiry, engaging with topics and themes in the histories of disability in the U.S. in 19th – 21st centuries. Synchronous or asynchronous readings, discussions, written responses to readings, and a final paper/project.
Quarter: Not currently offered
DISST/HSTCMP 402 & 502 MyPlan | DISST/HSTCMP 402 & 502 syllabus
Gen St 297 – Disability 101: Identity, Education, Careers, & Leadership »
Small-group discussion with faculty representing a wide spectrum of academic disciplines. Topics include faculty’s research techniques or findings, concentrated reading in his/her area of interest, or illustrated problems and alternative related to the study of a particular academic discipline. Class structure varies based on instructor.
Quarter: Autumn, Winter, Spring
HCDE 315 – Inclusive Design and Engineering »
Surveys a range of methods that examine, support, and interrogate design and engineering for disability and inclusivity. Students enact inclusive methods, reflect on their capacities to broaden design and engineering goals, and critique and evaluate their effectiveness from a variety of perspectives.
Quarter: Spring
Prerequisite: none
HCDE Directed Research Group »
Students in the Tactile Graphics Directed Research Group work in teams to develop workflows for tactile graphics. In this showcase, view demos of hardware and software solutions for low-cost Blind and Low Vision making and tactile biomechanics diagrams.
Quarter: Spring, Summer
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
HCDE 596 Directed Research in Human Centered Design and Engineering »
Students working in teams and supervisied by faculty, review relevant literature, pose research questions, design and conduct studies, and present the results in papers prepared for submission to a professional journal or for presentation at a professional conference.
Quarter: Spring, Summer
Prerequisite: permission of instructor
INFO 498 – Special Topics in Informatics: Accessibility »
Making the world and its information accessible can be crucial for supporting independent living and providing equal access to the information-rich world for millions of people. This class will cover concepts related to inclusive design, why accessibility is important, what access technologies already exist, and how to make interfaces and technologies accessible. Through a combination of readings, hands-on exercises, and an open-ended project, students will learn about the history and existing state of accessibility, where its future might be, and how to apply its principles and guidelines in practice.
Quarter: Spring, Summer
Perhaps of Interest:
INFO 104 Technology Ethics, Policy, and Law »
Drawing from law, ethics, and science and technology studies, introduces the ways society seeks to mitigate the harms of emerging technology and to promote human flourishing. (Spring 2025)
ITA 340 – Introduction to Web Publishing »
- Includes the Web Accessibility Initiative
Introduction to markup languages and publishing web content. Students gain understanding of HTML coding and extensions, image manipulation, information architecture, and web site publishing. Includes the Web Accessibility Initiative.
Quarter: Winter, Spring, Summer
ITA 341 – Client-side Scripting and Design »
Introduction to web browser design environment, scripting languages, JavaScript, Document Object Model, and creation of dynamic HTML web pages in combination with Cascading Style Sheets. Includes client-server architecture and web design principles in the contexts of technical feasibility, usability, and accessibility.
Quarter: Winter, Spring, Summer
HCID 501 – Immersion Studio »
A five-day intensive workshop that orients students to core ideas and terminology in HCI and design, provide some key skills that will be instrumental in success in a studio learning environment, and provide students with a intriguing portfolio story worth talking about with industry professionals.
Quarter: varies
Prerequisites: MHCID major
PMP – Future of Access Technologies »
Accessible technologies are at the forefront of technological innovation in a changing society. This class covers these cutting edge technologies, teaches thinking about access and inclusion, and looks at some of the history and critical theory around disability. Primarily, this is a class to build in, and we will learn about physical access technology using Arduinos and fabrication tools as well as software access technology. This is a graduate class with a fairly open-ended project at the end.
Quarter: varies
Prerequisites: comfort with programming, new languages
REHAB 566 – Disability and Health: Tensions, Intersections, and Opportunities »
Interrogate ways of thinking about disability and health within historical and contemporary healthcare practice and lay communities. Engage in critical analysis of disability and how tensions between various understandings of disability influence healthcare delivery, health professions education, and dominant social discourses of health and wellness, including the intersectional relationship between disability and other marginalized identities.
Quarter: Spring, Summer
REHAB 566 syllabus
Extracurricular and experiential:
Student competitions, -fests and -thons
CREATE, HuskyADAPT, the Taskar Center, and community partners host hackfests and hackathons each year. These events are intended to be fun, challenging, and accessible opportunities to generate new research ideas, pursue solutions to accessibility problems, work with mentors and peers, and gain new skills.
Farther afield
Student teams across the Pacific Northwest and across disciplines present their innovative research projects and compete for recognition and money prizes. All teams receive invaluable experience and feedback from judges. These challenges are hosted by the UW Foster School of Business’ Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.
- Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge – April, with start-up workshops and planning sessions in January; applications due early February.
- Environmental Innovation Challenge – early April, with start-up workshops and planning sessions in February; applications due the first half of February.
- Sacia Digital Health Innovation Workshop – Mid-November, UW Population Health Initiative co-hosts student “idea-athon” on digital solutions to pressing problems in healthcare, with preparation for springtime innovation challenges.
Related news
Funding and training opportunities - Winter 2025
January 21, 2025
We've rounded up some great opportunities for accessibility research, funding, and training. Most notably, deadlines are approaching for two CREATE grants:
CREATE Seed funding
For projects that push boundaries and try new things, or need opportunisticfunding in response to a new student, collaboration, or flash of insight.
Race, Disability, and Technology funding
For projects that engage with the intersection of race, disability, and technology (RDT).
Teach Access Student Academy
A two-day, free, virtual workshop for all, whether new to accessibility or deepening understanding, college or university student, or lifelong learner. The featured keynote speaker is Haben Girma, renowned human rights lawyer and the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School.
- February 20 – 21, 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
- Registration is free!
Highly recommended by CREATE Director for Education Emeritus, Richard Ladner. And CREATE Ph.D. graduate Emma McDonnell is presenting on day 1!
ACM CHI Workshop on Aging in Place call for participation
The ACM CHI workshop on Technology Mediated Caregiving for Older Adults Aging in Place focuses on research around technological supports for caregiving, specific to older adults as they age and begin to experience cognitive changes.
- Workshop: April 27
- February 13 - Position Papers due
- March 5 - Statements of interest due
See also
- Resources for Academics - A CREATE-curated list of grants, fellowships, mentoring, internships, and training opportunities for faculty and students.
- CREATE Research Funding - Funding for CREATE faculty, students, and staff working on accessibility-related research.
Former CREATE postdoc Sasha Portnova talks about her experiences and inspirations
November 22, 2024
Dr. Alexandra (Sasha) Portnova, who was a postdoctoral research with CREATE in 2022-24, was interviewed about those experiences as a NIDILRR-funded fellow and about her work in rehabilitation research. In the National Rehabilitation Information Center interview, Portnova spoke about the value of the CREATE ARRT fellowship in transitioning from the overwhelming life as a Ph.D. student into a faculty career.
Currently, Portnova is a research scientist in the Neuromechanics & Mobility Lab, directed by CREATE associate director Katherine M. Steele. She describes herself as an upper-extremity enthusiast. From orthotic and prosthetic devices to virtual rehabilitation techniques, she is interested in fusing engineering and medical fields to develop solutions that would improve the quality of live of individuals with upper-limb disabilities.
"Research. A lot of research."
Portnova said that the goal of the postdoctoral fellowship is to train leaders in rehabilitation research and to harness advances in physical computing and fabrication. Postdocs participate in research, coursework, mentoring, and physical computing tools for rehabilitation applications. "You design your project from scratch... you see it come through every step of the process."
And though she chuckled at the idea of taking courses again, she noted that instead of the huge course load of a Ph.D. student, she took targeted courses to enhance her education and experience. The mentoring experience was very helpful to prepare to be a principal investigator and ultimately feel more prepared to tackle the role as a faculty.
She also noted that, as an undergrad at the UW when CREATE was a brand new research center, she has enjoyed seeing the growth into a "big center" and a community working to improve the lives of people with disabilities.
Gears of Progress Podcast
Asked about the inspiration behind her podcast, Gears of Progress, Portnova emphasized the importance of scientific communication, mentorship, and the future of research in assistive technology. She first became interested in listening to podcasts as a new parent, wanting to be productive while her hands were busy. Since she loves talking about science and communicating about research to the general public, producing her own podcast was the next step. Her goal with Gears of Progress is to bring content out of the research journals to the rehabilitation specialists and, ultimately, to people with disabilities.
The Gears of Progress podcast is available on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Castbox
Mobile 3D printer can autonomously add accessibility features to a room
October 29, 2024
From accessibility upgrades to a custom cat-food bowl, a prototype mobile 3D printer is being used to change the built environment and tailor spaces for peoples’ needs or style preferences.
Built on a modified consumer vacuum robot, MobiPrint can automatically measure a room and print objects onto its floor to add accessibility features, home customizations, or artistic flourishes to the space. The prototype was built by a research team in the Makeability Lab. The team, led by CREATE Ph.D. student Daniel Campos Zamora and CREATE associate director Jon E. Froehlich, customized a graphic interface that lets users design objects that the robot has mapped out.
The team recently presented its work at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Pittsburgh (UIST). Read their research paper, MobiPrint: A Mobile 3D Printer for Environment-Scale Design and Fabrication.
Pushing 3D printers to do more
Today’s 3D printers make it fairly easy to fabricate a chess set, for example. But these printers are largely fixed in place. So if someone wants to add 3D-printed elements to a room — a footrest beneath a desk, for instance — the project gets more difficult. A space must be measured. The objects must then get scaled, printed elsewhere and fixed in the right spot. Handheld 3D printers exist, but they lack accuracy and come with a learning curve.
"How can we push [digital fabrication] further and further into the world, and lower the barriers for people to use it? How can we change the built environment and tailor spaces for peoples' specific needs — for accessibility, for taste?"
--Daniel Campos Zamora, lead author and CREATE Ph.D. student in the Allen School
How it works
The prototype system can add accessibility features, such as tactile markers for blind and low-vision people. These might provide information, such as text telling conference attendees where to go, or warn of dangers such as staircases. Or it can create a ramp to cover an uneven flooring transition. MobiPrint also allows users to create custom objects, such as small art pieces up to three inches tall.
Before printing an object, MobiPrint autonomously roams an indoor space and uses LiDAR to map it. The team’s design tool then converts this map into an interactive canvas. The user then can select a model from the MobiPrint library — a cat food bowl, for instance — or upload a design. Next, the user picks a location on the map to print the object, working with the design interface to scale and position the job. Finally, the robot moves to the location and prints the object directly onto the floor.
For printing, the current design uses a bioplastic common in 3D printing called PLA. The researchers are working to have MobiPrint remove objects it’s printed and potentially recycle the plastic. They’re also interested in exploring the possibilities of robots that print on other surfaces (such as tabletops or walls), in other environments (such as outdoors), and with other materials (such as concrete).
"I think about kids out biking or my friends and family members who are in wheelchairs getting to the end of a sidewalk without a curb. It would be so great if in the future we could just send Daniel’s robot down the street and have it build a ramp."
--Jon E. Froehlich, Director of the Makeability Lab
Liang He, an assistant professor at Purdue University, who was a doctoral student in the Allen School while doing this research, is a co-author on this paper.
This article was excerpted from the UW News article by Stefan Milne and the MobiPrint project page.
New Book: Teaching Accessible Computing
March 14, 2024
A new, free, and community-sourced online book helps Computer Science educators integrate accessibility topics into their classes. Teaching Accessibility provides the foundations of accessibility relevant to computer science teaching and then presents teaching methods for integrating those topics into course designs.
The editors are Alannah Oleson, a postdoctoral scholar and co-founder at the UW Center for Learning, Computing, and Imagination (LCI), CREATE and iSchool faculty Amy Ko, and Richard Ladner, CREATE Director of Education Emeritus. You may recognize many CREATE faculty members’ research referenced throughout the guide. CREATE Director Jennifer Mankoff and CREATE Ph.D. student Avery Kelly Mack contributed a foundational chapter that advocates for teaching inclusively in addition to teaching about accessibility.
Letting the book speak for itself
"... we’ve designed this book as a free, open, living, web-first document. It’s free thanks to a National Science Foundation grant (NSF No. 2137312) that has funded our time to edit and publish the book. It’s open in that you can see and comment on the book at any time, creating community around its content. It’s living in that we expect it to regularly change and evolve as the community of people integrating accessibility into their CS courses grows and evolves. And it’s web-first in that the book is designed first and foremost as an accessible website to be read on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices, rather than as a print book or PDF. This ensures that everyone can read it, but also that it can be easily changed and updated as our understandings of how to teach accessibility in CS evolve."
Introduction by Alannah Oleson, Amy J. Ko, Richard Ladner
"To write these chapters, we recruited some of the world’s experts on accessible computing and teaching accessible computing, giving them a platform to share both their content knowledge about how accessibility intersects with specific CS topics, but also their pedagogical content knowledge about how to teach those intersections in CS courses."
Introduction by Alannah Oleson, Amy J. Ko, Richard Ladner
Augmented Reality to Support Accessibility
October 25, 2023
RASSAR – Room Accessibility and Safety Scan in Augmented Reality – is a novel smartphone-based prototype for semi-automatically identifying, categorizing, and localizing indoor accessibility and safety issues. With RASSAR, the user holds out their phone and scans a space. The tool uses LiDAR and camera data, real-time machine learning, and AR to construct a real-time model of the 3D scene, attempts to identify and classify known accessibility and safety issues, and visualizes potential problems overlaid in AR.
RASSAR researchers envision the tool as an aid in the building and validation of new construction, planning renovations, or updating homes for health concerns, or for telehealth home visits with occupational therapists. UW News interviewed two CREATE Ph.D. students about their work on the project: