News – Page 5 – UW CREATE

Reimagining Mobility: Urban Accessibility – from Crowdsourcing to AI

Still image from YouTube with photo of a crowded urban street and text about mobility inequities

In December 2021, CREATE faculty Anat Caspi and Jon Froehlich discussed the innovative ways they are using AI, crowdsourcing, and translational research to reimagine urban accessibility.

Teams from the UW Makeability Lab and the UW Taskar Center for Accessible Technology have worked to develop and deploy tools like AccessMaps, OpenSidewalks, and Project Sidewalk that are transforming how we share, evaluate, and understand our urban environments.

Participants were invited to a deep dive into one of these initiatives – Project Sidewalk – to learn how to contribute to the crowd-sourcing efforts. Despite the important role of sidewalks in supporting mobility, accessibility, and public health, there is a lack of high-quality datasets and corresponding analyses on sidewalk existence and condition.

Project Sidewalk explores a twofold vision: first, to develop scalable mechanisms to locate and assess sidewalks in cities across the world using Crowd+AI approaches, and second, to use this data to support new urban analyses and mobility tools.

Project Sidewalk is currently deployed in seven cities, including two in Mexico.

Join the Reimagining Mobility conversation

Join us for a series of conversations imagining the future of mobility. Hosted by CREATE Associate Directors Kat Steele and Heather Feldner, we 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.

Upcoming conversations

Stay tuned. 2022 series to be announced.

Past conversations

Flyer summarizing the information on Conversation Hub topics for Fall 2021 — Download the Fall 2021 flyer (PDF)

Reimagining Mobility: Collecting Data. Creating Plans. Removing Barriers?

A graphic showing the cycle of lack of access and mobility in the built environment and how that impedes community participation which feeds limited societal views of disability, which contributes to inaccessibility in the built environment. — Click to view the captioned and transcribed video on YouTube.

On November 18, 2021 Dr. Yochai Eisenberg shared successes and challenges in the pursuit of accessible pedestrian networks. We discussed community mobility as it relates to accessible pathways, use of public transportation, and modes of travel to destinations.

Dr. Eisenberg described a systematic mobility evaluation, detailed some of the findings, and shared the conclusion that communities in the U.S. do not have strong plans for building accessible pathways. He stressed that the solution includes meaningfully involving people with disabilities, so that transition plans can help cities.

Dr. Yochai Eisenberg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago and affiliated researcher at the Great Lakes ADA Center. Dr. Eisenberg studies the ways in which neighborhood environments, policies, and systems impact community mobility, health behaviors and health outcomes for people with disabilities using a blend of big data analytics, policy evaluation, and community engaged research.

Dr. Eisenberg’s research has contributed to better understanding implementation of ADA transition plans for the public rights of way in the US, rideshare use and satisfaction among people with disabilities, and accessibility of environments that support healthy, active living. Dr. Eisenberg’s interdisciplinary work reflects his training in public health (Ph.D.), urban planning (Master’s) and disability studies and is interwoven in his undergraduate course that explores the links between disability, urban planning and geography.

Join the Reimagining Mobility conversation

Upcoming conversations

Stay tuned. 2022 series to be announced.

Past conversations

Reimagining Mobility: Inclusive Architecture

Karen Braitmayer, seated in her wheelchair on the observation deck of the Space Needle, with full view of Seattle because obstructive walls were removed in a remodel — Click to view the captioned and transcribed video on YouTube

On October 13, 2021 Karen Braitmayer shared images from her experience of— and critical goals for— inclusive architecture. Noting that the best and brightest designers might come in bodies that are different than employers expect, she called for design schools to welcome students with disabilities and for design firms to hire and support the careers of designers with disabilities.

First steps for designers:

Provide options: wider seats, different height soap dispensers, etc.
Learn about building codes and regulations.
Talk to folks who have already figured out how to accommodate for their own disabilities and hack for accessibility.

Karen Braitmayer using a wheelchair in a modern building with stairs and ramps

Architect Karen L. Braitmayer, FAIA, is the founding principal of Studio Pacifica, an accessibility consulting firm based in Seattle, Washington. Her “good fight” has consistently focused on supporting equity and full inclusion for persons with disabilities.

In 2019, she was chosen as the national winner of the AIA Whitney M. Young, Jr. award—a prestigious award given to an architect who “embodies social responsibility and actively addresses a relevant issue”. In the award’s 48-year history, she was the first recipient honored for their work in the area of civil rights for persons with disabilities. Braitmayer was also appointed by President Barack Obama to the United States Access Board, a position she retains today.

Join the Reimagining Mobility conversation

Upcoming conversations

Stay tuned. 2022 series to be announced.

Past conversations

Help make the WSDOT website more accessible

Anthro-Tech is looking for people who use screen readers and other assistive technology to participate in a usability study on the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) website redesign.

During a study session, the facilitator will show the participant the new website and ask them to use it to complete a few tasks.

Sessions will take place on Zoom for 60-90 minutes and participants receive a $100 check as a thank you.

Learn more and sign up at WSDOT Website Study: Call for participants.

Recruiting for Tactile Map Participants

UW researchers are seeking participants for a paid study.

Who: People who are blind or low vision who use a screen reader and are 18 years or older.
What: Participants will be asked to test 3D-printed tactile maps. Sessions are 60 minutes. For details, see the signup survey.
Where: UW Seattle campus.
When: August.
Compensation: $40 and a travel stipend.
How: Contact Kelly Mack at kmack3@cs.washington.edu or fill out the signup survey.

CREATE Community Day and research showcase

CREATE Community Day 2021 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.

CREATE members highlighted what their labs are doing, with time to hear about a variety of individual projects. Read on for a sample of the presentations.

$1M NIDILRR award for leadership training program

A team of CREATE faculty has received a five-year, $1M grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) for the project, “ARRT: Postdoctoral Training in Physical Computing and Fabrication to Support Innovations for Community Living and Participation.” Congratulations on the funding to the team members:

Co-PI Jennifer Mankoff, Ph.D and Professor Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering
Co-PI Anat Caspi, Ph.D. and Principal, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
Heather Feldner, PT, Ph.D., PCS and Assistant Professor, School of Medicine, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
Kat Steele, Ph.D. and Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering

The award funds a program that will train four postdoctoral fellows to become leaders in rehabilitation research who can harness advances in physical computing and fabrication to enhance community living and participation with people with disabilities. Each fellow will complete a 24-month training program to build their expertise in physical computing, fabrication, rehabilitation, and disability studies. Training will address a shortage of people qualified to harness, deliver, and advance physical computing for rehabilitation research. The four postdoctoral fellows will participate in research, coursework, and mentoring that expands expertise in using primary and complex adaptation tools, 3D-modeling software, and fabrication machines (e.g., laser cutters, 3D printers) for rehabilitation applications. Their innovative research, publications, presentations, and community resources will amplify the impacts of this training program.

Grad student Kelly Mack receives a Dennis Lang award

Kelly Mack, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and mentored by CREATE Founding Co-Director Jen Mankoff, received a Dennis Lang Award from the UW Disabilities Studies program and the following praise:

“Kelly is dedicated to improving accessibility for disabled students at UW through her research, service, and mentoring and allyship. Her thesis work will examine communication between DRS, students, and other stakeholders, and develop a prototype to allow tracking of DRS requests for improved accountability.”

This award honors Dennis Lang, a co-founder of the UW Disability Studies Program, for his dedication and service in the creation and growth of the UW Disability Studies community and program. The award goes to students who embody Dennis’ spirited commitment to and academic excellence in the field of Disability Studies.

Mack received a merit-based monetary award and was recognized at the Disability Studies convocation on June 4.

Jon Froehlich named Outstanding Faculty Member by the UW College of Engineering

Congrats to CREATE Associate Director Jon Froehlich on being selected for the Outstanding Faculty Award by the UW College of Engineering!

As noted by the College, Froehlich went to extraordinary measures to support his students’ learning during the pandemic. He fundamentally transformed physical computing courses for virtual platforms, assembled and mailed hardware kits to students’ homes, and developed interactive hardware diagrams, tutorials and videos. In addition, Froehlich co-created and led a group of university educators to share best practices for remote teaching of computing lab courses.

Jon Froehlich, CREATE Associate Director and Allen School faculty member

As chair for the conference ASSETS’22, Froehlich has helped ensure the conference is accessible to not only those with physical or sensory disabilities, but for those with chronic illnesses, caretaking responsibilities, or other commitments that prevent physical travel.

In response to the award, Froehlich noted, “I quite literally could not have done this without [CREATE Founding Co-Directors] Jake and Jen’s mentorship and support.”

This article was excerpted from the UW College of Engineering’s CoE Awards announcement.

CREATE Research Showcase – Spring 2021

Schedule of events for the 2021 CREATE Research Showcase. Open to the public, CREATE faculty and students share research in accessibility.

The Future of Assistive Technology: A Panel Discussion

Anat Caspi participated in a panel discussion on the future of assistive technology and how recent innovations are likely to affect the lives of people with disabilities.

Reimagining Mobility: Inclusive Living and Home Design

Barry Long is an advocate for people with disabilities who is helping to make real estate more accessible. Watch our third Conversation Hub session, where Long shares past challenges and future improvements in inclusive, visitable homes.

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.

Throughout the workshop, participants focused on four areas:

Education for employment pathways
Making K-12 computing education accessible
Making higher education in computing accessible
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.

Research Workshop for Undergraduates with Disabilities

CREATE and UW AccessComputing co-sponsored a 3-day research-focused workshop for undergraduates in computing fields who have disabilities.

Education: Accessibility and Race

The Fall 2020 CREATE Accessibility Seminar focused on the intersection of Race and Accessibility. This topic was chosen both for its timeliness and also as part of CREATE’s commitment to ensure that our work is inclusive, starting with educating ourselves about the role of race in disability research and the gaps that exist in the field.

CREATE Board Members Honored by SIGCHI

Two UW CREATE board members were honored by SIGCHI for their research in human-technology and human-computer interaction (HCI) that advances technology for people with disabilities.

Reimagining Mobility: Smart tech for mobility, health and agency

This UW CREATE event has passed. Sign up for future Reimagining Mobility Conversations.

Brothers Barry and Jered Dean set about to design and engineer an addition for the powered wheelchair experience for Barry’s daughter, Katherine. In the process they discovered tensions between what has been defined as smart technology and what users want to support their mobility, health, agency, and privacy. In our second Conversation Hub, they shared lessons learned and entertaining anecdotes in their journey from tinkerers to founders of LUCI, a powered wheelchair add-on accessory that supports greater independence and safe navigation with features like collision avoidance and tip/drop off warnings that can be tuned to the driver’s preferences.

Captioned video of our online event

Favorite quotes from our discussion

“We have to realize there’s a dignity in risk. It’s okay that somebody’s gonna do something that maybe I wouldn’t do, or the technology doesn’t agree with.”

Jered Dean

“I understand the logic of having a large sample size and sometimes that gives you great clarity, but sometimes it gives you great mediocrity or great generalization. In songwriting we’re taught as professionals, the more connected you want to be with your audience, the more specific you will need to be. So especially in country music, you use incredibly detailed things.”

Barry Dean

Event description

The CREATE Conversation Hub hosted a live discussion with LUCI co-founders and brothers, Barry & Jered Dean. LUCI was founded after the brothers began designing and engineering an addition for the motorized wheelchair used by Barry’s daughter, Katherine. The changes were meant to make it safer and “smart,” connecting it to the internet so she can interact with the same up-to-date technology a lot of people use.

Through this process they found tensions in what was defined as smart technology to support mobility, health, agency, and privacy. We read and discussed Judging Smart, a guide the Dean brothers developed that offers initial ideas and questions around the concept of smart technology in power mobility.

The cover of the PDF Judging Smart: A framework for assessing "smart" technology in power mobility today by Jered Dean. Features a person wearing a pair of stylish boots on a power wheelchair.

Jered Dean is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at LUCI, where he brings his decade-long experience in new product development to life, including acting as the former director of Capstone Design at the Colorado School of Mines. Jered founded LUCI in 2017 with his brother, Barry, in hopes of creating a technology that could improve life in a power wheelchair for his niece, Katherine.

Barry Dean is an award-winning songwriter turned wheelchair technology founder. As CEO of LUCI, Barry seeks to provide security, stability and connectivity for power wheelchairs. He founded the company with hopes of building a smarter solution for his daughter Katherine and all power wheelchair riders. He is a founding writer at Creative Nation Music, Recording Academy (GRAMMY) Nashville Chapter Governor, and has previously served two terms as a board member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International.

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.

Reimagining Mobility: A Conversation with Sara Hendren

This UW CREATE event has passed. Continue for a summary and to watch the entire online session. Sign up for future Reimagining Mobility Conversations.

To launch the Reimagining Mobility Conversation Hub series we could think of no better guest speaker than Sara Hendren. Part of reimagining is examining the current state of the world, reframing our viewpoints, and having the courage to try new things. Sara’s work really epitomizes this process.

Sara Hendren shared her perspective 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.

In our Conversation Hub session, Hendren examined what it takes to move through the world with a disability, accounting for the affordances (or lack thereof) of the built environment and creative design that simultaneously facilitates participation and challenges ableist assumptions about design. She shared examples of how we can think past the better known examples of high tech prosthetics and universal design to also consider low tech, highly individualized access solutions. She discussed the universal human experiences of interdependence and dependence (rather than independence) as we navigate our world.

Hendren is an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. Her work spans collaborative public art and social design that engages the human body, technology, and the politics of disability — such as a lectern for short stature or a ramp for wheelchair dancing. She also co-founded the Accessible Icon Project.

Bright yellow image from a book cover with the title 'What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World' and author 'Sara Hendren.' — Cover of Hendren’s book, What Can a Body Do? In the presentation, she explains the choice to have the text run past the boundary of the space.