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Caspi to lead collaborative $11.45M Transportation Data Equity Initiative

Anat CaspiA white woman smiling into the camera. She is wearing a purple blouse.

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…

Mankoff wins AccessComputing Capacity Building award

Jennifer Mankoff, a white, Jewish woman. She is smiling broadly and standing casually in the Allen Center atrium

Congratulations to Jennifer Mankoff on receiving the AccessComputing Capacity Building Award! She was honored for her leadership in helping make all Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction (SIGCHI) conferences accessible to attendees with disabilities.  Through her leadership, the SIGCHI Executive Committee now has adjunct chairs for accessibility, which institutionalizes accessibility as an important facet of SIGCHI activities. Jen holds monthly online meetings of the AccessSIGCHI leadership team to help set and execute its agenda.  Every year AccessComputing honors someone with the AccessComputing Capacity Building Award for…

UW Disability Equity Project Seeks Focus Group Participants

UW students, staff, and faculty who have a disability, physical or mental health condition, a chronic illness, or are d/Deaf are invited to contribute to a research project on disability, equity, and inclusion. A research team from the Disability Studies Program, The D Center, and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine will conduct online focus groups where participants will be asked to share their experiences of ableism or discrimination as well as allyship and community in academic and healthcare situations. The…

Scholars who use screen readers sought for user study

The Semantic Scholar Research Team at the Allen Institute for AI is conducting an experiment to evaluate the screen reader accessibility of scientific papers. We are looking for participants who are age 18 or older, who identify as blind or low vision, and who have experience using screen readers to interact with scientific papers. The details: Complete the eligibility form to determine eligibility Study is all online (Zoom) Takes approximately 75 minutes Participants receive a $150 Amazon gift card Participation…

CREATE faculty and students awarded at ASSETS 2020

Congratulations to UW CREATE faculty on multiple awards at ASSETS 2020, the International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility! “The University of Washington has been a leader in accessible technology research, design, engineering, and evaluation for years. This latest round of awards from ACM ASSETS is further testament to the great work being done at the UW. Now, with the recent launch of CREATE, our award-winning faculty and students are brought together like never before, and we are already…

SoundWatch smartwatch app alerts d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing users to sounds

A wrist with a smartwatch on it. The smartwatch has an alert that says "Car honk, 98%, Loud, 101 dB" It also has options to snooze the alert for 10 minutes or open in an app on the user's phone.

October 28, 2020 | UW News UW CREATE faculty members Jon Froehlich and Leah Findlater have helped develop a smartwatch app for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who want to be aware of nearby sounds. The smartwatch will identify sounds the user is interested in — such as a siren, a water faucet left on, or a bird chirping — and send the user a friendly buzz along with information. “This technology provides people with a way to experience sounds that…

Feldner team receives grant to study pediatric mobility technology

CREATE Associate Director Heather Feldner and her research team have been awarded a pilot research grant from the newly founded NIH Pediatric Rehabilitation Resource Center (C-PROGRESS) to study early mobility technology. The team, one of only three selected across the country, includes Sam Logan, an associate professor at Oregon State University, and Lisa Kenyon, a professor at Grand Valley State University. Study Details: The use of powered mobility devices for young children with cerebral palsy (CP) has been gaining traction. …

NIH Rehabilitation Research 2020

October 13, 2020 Dr. Kat M. Steele, an associate director of CREATE, presents at NIH’s Rehabilitation Research 2020: Envisioning a Functional Future conference on Friday, October 16, 2020. She will be presenting in the Mobility Across the Lifespan session with Bernadette Gillick, PhD, PT from the University of Minnesota and Levi Hargrove from the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. This meeting highlights rehabilitation research and informs the congressionally-mandated NIH Research Plan on Rehabilitation Research to inform priorities for the next four years….

UW CREATE leadership at ASSETS 2020

UW CREATE has a large and quality presence at ASSETS 2020, the premier annual conference for accessible computing research. Drawing from three departments, University of Washington authors contributed to six papers and two posters to be presented at this year’s online conference. Three of our papers were nominated for best paper! Seven members also served in conference roles: two on the organizing committee and five on the program committee. The papers and posters span a variety of topics including input…

Black Disability Art History 101: From Back in the Day to Today

The Inclusion Project, a youth led project, with the Center for Disability Leadership is hosting this workshop led by Leroy F. Moore Jr., founder of Krip-Hop Nation. Wed, October 21, 20203:30 – 5:00 p.m. PDT Learn more and register to attend Black disabled and Deaf artists have always existed. They were on the street corners down South singing the Blues, spray painting on New York subways, and bringing sign language to the big screen. Today, young Black disabled artists are…

Sara Hendren – What Can a Body Do?

October 6, 2020 The CREATE Conversation Hub hosts a live Q&A with Sara Hendren on the future of mobility and lessons she learned through writing her new book, What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. Sara Hendren: Future visions of mobility and lessons learned through writing What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World January 8, 2021 at 11 a.m. Pacific time (2 p.m. Eastern time) Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, writer,…

CREATE Conversation Hub: Reimagining Mobility

October, 2020 Mobility is a central part of accessibility and this new Conversation Hub, hosted by CREATE Associate Directors Kat Steele and Heather Feldner, provides a way to connect and learn from guests who are engaged in critical mobility work — ranging from researchers to small business owners to self-advocates. We will dive deeply into conversations about mobility as a multifaceted concept, and explore how it intersects with other dimensions of access across contexts of research, education, and public policy….

Reimagining Mobility: CREATE Conversation Hub

What constitutes mobility and who gets to define it? How do we move and explore the world? What barriers and assumptions limit mobility?  How do we support all forms of mobility throughout the lifespan? Mobility is about more than how we get from Point A to Point B. Regardless of form, mobility is a medium through which  we interact and engage with the world. Yet, assumptions about “normal” or “acceptable” ways to move are literally cemented into our world.

Advancement of women with disabilities in STEM careers gets $1 million NSF award

The CREATE team applauds and congratulates AccessADVANCE, a new project that was recently awarded $1 million by the National Science Foundation. AccessADVANCE seeks to increase the participation and advancement of women with disabilities in academic science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.  There are relatively few women who currently hold faculty positions in STEM fields and even fewer with disabilities. This effort has the potential to impact both — women in general, because any faculty member may at some point become disabled,…

Richard Ladner Receives 2020 Public Service Award from National Science Board

National Science Board | August 11, 2020 Dr. Richard Ladner, CREATE’s Director for Education, has been named the 2020 recipient of the Public Service Award for an individual from the National Science Board (NSB). In recognizing Ladner, the board cited his exemplary science communication, diversity advocacy, and well-earned reputation as the “conscience of computing.” “When we think about diversity, we must include disability as part of that. The conversation about diversity should always include disability.” Richard Ladner, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering From…

Participants Needed for Usability Study

Individuals with mobility impairments who use a wheelchair as their primary mobility device may qualify to participate in a paid usability study. Participants will test new technology that can improve workplace accessibility in an e-commerce fulfillment environment. The study will be conducted by Fieldwork, a national market research firm, on behalf of Amazon. Participants must be able to independently transfer to another surface, have good upper extremity function, be able to perform moderate levels of activity, and be able to…

Can Project Sidewalk Use Crowdsourcing to Help Seattleites Get Around?

July 23, 2019 | SeattleMet With the goal of making navigating our streets safer and easier for the mobility impaired, Jon Froehlich’s Project Sidewalk turns mapping sidewalks and improving pedestrian accessibility into a virtual game. To complete missions, users “walk” through city streets via Google Street View, labeling and rating the quality of sidewalks and features that make it easier—or tougher—to get around. They identify curb ramps, or lack thereof, assess their positioning, and point out tripping hazards. Since Froehlich…