Get announcements directly in your inbox. Join a CREATE mailing list.

  • Quarterly Seminar on Accessibility Research

    8:58 pm

    The CREATE Accessibility Seminar, CSE 590w - Accessibility Research, brings students and faculty together to explore a variety of topics relating to accessibility and technology. In the Fall, we usually read a book together. Spring seminars are usually short research presentations, followed by discussion and critical evaluations.

    Autumn 2023-24

    This quarter we will read Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong.

    Mondays, 3:30-4:30 p.m. starting October 2, 2023
    Remote over Zoom
    Join the seminar mailing list

    The book is available for purchase online and is available in accessible formats on Bookshare

    Participants read a portion of the book each week and meet remotely to discuss the reading.

    For more information, contact the student leads, Aashaka Desai and Kelly Avery Mack. The faculty lead is Kat Steele.


    Course information

    Past topics

      Read more

    • Your Review & Comments Wanted: Proposed Federal Accessibility Standards

      4:49 pm

      August 11, 2023

      A proposal for new digital accessibility guidelines for entities receiving federal funds was released for review by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on August 4, 2023.  Anyone affected by these guidelines has 60 days — through Tuesday, October 3, 2023 — to comment.

      The DOJ is still trying to decide exactly what the rule should say, how quickly public entities should improve digital accessibility, and what exceptions to allow. For example, the current rule states that course content posted on a password-protected website (such as a learning management system (LMS) like Canvas) does not have to be made accessible until a student with a disability needs access to that content. If a student registers for the course, or transfers into it, then the course content has to be made fully accessible to all disabilities by the start of the term or within 5 days (if the term has already started). In addition, the course needs to stay accessible over time.

      CREATE Director Jennifer Mankoff summarizes some of the most important aspects of the proposed rule in a Guide to Reviewing and Commenting that includes many of the the questions posed by the DOJ, with additional questions to consider from Mankoff. This guide is not meant to direct your comments, rather to facilitate and encourage your review. Whatever your viewpoint on the questions raised, the DOJ should hear from you

      We strongly urge you to review the guidelines and submit your comments. If you have any questions, reach out to CREATE at create-contact@uw.edu.

      Read more

    • CREATE Open Source Projects Awarded at Web4All

      1:06 am

      July 6, 2023

      CREATE researchers shone this spring at the 2023 Web4All 2023 conference that, in part, seeks to "make the internet more accessible to the more than one billion people who struggle to interact with digital content each day due to neurodivergence, disability or other impairments." Two CREATE-funded open source projects won accolades.

      Best Technical Paper award:
      Understanding and Improving Drilled-Down Information Extraction from Online Data Visualizations for Screen-Reader Users

      Authors: Ather Sharif, Andrew Mingwei Zhang, CREATE faculty member Katharina Reinecke, and CREATE Associate Director Jacob O. Wobbrock

      Built on prior research to develop taxonomies of information sought by screen-reader users to interact with online data visualizations, the team's research used these taxonomies to extend the functionality of VoxLens—an open-source multi-modal system that improves the accessibility of data visualizations—by supporting drilled-down information extraction. They assessed the performance of their VoxLens enhancements through task-based user studies with 10 screen-reader and 10 non-screen-reader users. Their enhancements “closed the gap” between the two groups by enabling screen-reader users to extract information with approximately the same accuracy as non-screen-reader users, reducing interaction time by 22% in the process.

      Accessibility Challenge Delegates' Award:
      UnlockedMaps: A Web-Based Map for Visualizing the Real-Time Accessibility of Urban Rail Transit Stations

      Authors: Ather Sharif, Aneesha Ramesh, Qianqian Yu, Trung-Anh H. Nguyen, and Xuhai Xu

      Ather Sharif’s work on another project, UnlockedMaps, was honored with the Accessibility Challenge Delegates' Award. The paper details a web-based map that allows users to see in real time how accessible rail transit stations are in six North American cities, including Seattle, Toronto, New York and the Bay Area. UnlockedMaps shows whether stations are accessible and if they are currently experiencing elevator outages. Their work includes a public website that enables users to make informed decisions regarding their commute and an open source API that can be used by developers, disability advocates, and policy makers for a variety of purposes, including shedding light on the frequency of elevator outages and their repair times to identify the disparities between neighborhoods in a given city.

      Read more

      Read more

    • Welcome Mark Harniss, CREATE's New Director for Education

      6:28 pm

      June 13, 2023

      CREATE is thrilled to have Mark Harniss as our new Director for Education. Harniss is an associate professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and director of the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and the Center for Technology and Disability. Until recently, he was the director of the Disability Studies Program but stepped down at the end of the 2023 academic year.

      Mark Harniss a white man in his 50s with short brown hair and blue eyes wearing a dark polo shirt in front of fall-colored leaves.

      Harniss' professional background lies in special education and instructional technology, but his current focus revolves around knowledge translation, assistive technology, accessible information technology (IT), and disability law and policy.

      In his role as CREATE Director for Education, Mark aims to foster collaboration and cooperation between UW “upper and lower campus,” particularly by forging connections between CREATE, the Disability Studies Program, the Institute on Human Development and Disability (IHDD), and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. Additionally, he intends to expand CREATE's reach by establishing links with important external communities, ensuring that the innovations generated within CREATE are available to these communities. In turn, he envisions that these communities will provide valuable insights to CREATE researchers regarding their specific needs.

      Read more

    • Deep Gratitude to Wobbrock, Ladner & Caspi

      3:17 pm

      June 13, 2023

      The CREATE community thanks three of our founding leaders for their energy and service in launching the center as we embark upon some transitions. "CREATE would not be where it is today without the vision, passion, and commitment that Jake, Richard, and Anat brought to their work leading the center," says CREATE Director Jennifer Mankoff.

      Co-Director Jacob O. Wobbrock: From vision, to launch, to sustainable leadership

      Jacob O. Wobbrock, a 40-something white man with short hair, a beard, and glasses. He is smiling in front of a white board.

      It was back in June 2019 that Jacob O. Wobbrock, CREATE’s founding Co-Director, was on a panel discussion at Microsoft’s IdeaGen 2030 event, where he talked about ability-based design. Also on that panel was future CREATE Associate Director Kat Steele. After the event, the two talked with Microsoft Research colleagues, particularly Dr. Meredith Ringel Morris, about the possibility of founding an accessible technology research center at the University of Washington.

      Wobbrock and Steele thought that a center could bring faculty together and make them more than the sum of their parts. Within a few months, Wobbrock returned to Microsoft with Jennifer Mankoff, Richard Ladner, and Anat Caspi to pitch Microsoft’s Chief Accessibility Officer, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, on the idea of supporting the new Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). With additional support from Microsoft President Brad Smith, and input from Morris, the center was launched by Smith and UW President Ana Marie Cauce at Microsoft’s Ability Summit in Spring 2020.

      Wobbrock, along with Mankoff, served as CREATE’s inaugural co-directors until June 2023, when Wobbrock stepped down into an associate director role, with Mankoff leading CREATE as sole Director. "I'm a founder by nature," Wobbrock said. "I helped start DUB, the MHCI+D degree, a startup called AnswerDash, and then CREATE. I really enjoy establishing new organizations and seeing them take flight. Now that CREATE is soaring, it’s time for more capable hands than mine to pilot the plane. Jennifer Mankoff is one of the best, most capable, energetic, and visionary leaders I know. She will take CREATE into its next chapter and I can’t wait to see what she does." Wobbrock will still be very active with the center.

      Professor Emeritus Richard Ladner, one of CREATE's founders and our inaugural Education Director

      Headshot of Richard Ladner. He has grey hair and beard and is wearing a blue shirt and colorful tie.

      We thank Professor Emeritus Richard Ladner for three years of leadership as one of our founders and CREATE's inaugural Education Director. Ladner initiated the CREATE Student Minigrant Program that helps fund small grants up to $2,000 in support of student initiated research projects.

      Ladner has shepherded 10 minigrants and worked directly with eight Teach Access Study Away students. Through his AccessComputing program, he helped fund several summer research internships for undergraduate students working with CREATE faculty. All CREATE faculty contribute to accessibility related education in their courses, where he provides encouragement.

      https://create.uw.edu/welcome-mark-harniss-creates-new-director-of-education/

      Anat Caspi, inaugural Director of Translation

      Anat Caspi: A white woman smiling into the camera. She is wearing a purple blouse.

      Anat Caspi defined and elevated CREATE's translation efforts, leveraging the center's relationships with partners in industry, disability communities, and academia. Her leadership created sustainable models for translation and built on our prior successes. Collaborations with the TASKAR centerHuskyADAPT, and the UW Disability Studies Program have ensured diverse voices to inform innovation. 

      Director of Translation duties will be distributed across Mankoff, CREATE's Community Engagement and Partnerships Manager Kathleen Quin Voss, and the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, which Caspi directs.

      Read more