Talk title: Rethinking Design for Accessibility

Abstract: Approximately 61 million Americans, or one in four U.S. adults, have a disability that affects daily life. Despite the prevalence of disability across the lifespan, accessibility is typically an afterthought in technology design. Discussions of accessibility often center on checklists of requirements and whether or not a system has particular features. In this talk, I will argue for a view of accessibility that is collaboratively negotiated, situated, and enacted through sociomaterial relations. Grounded in extensive field work, I will present three cases of design for accessibility that shift how we think about building systems with and for individuals with disabilities. These projects detail new systems for collaborative meaning-making in the context of dementia, online social advocacy among blind and visually impaired older adults, and ability-diverse group work and design. Collectively, these projects reveal the interactive nature of accessibility that is often missing in individualistic system design and call attention to the importance of the social and political dimensions of accessibility alongside the technological.

Bio: Anne Marie Piper is an Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research in human-computer interaction focuses on designing and studying new technologies to support communication, social interaction, and learning for people across the lifespan. Her research is funded through four NSF awards, including a CAREER award, and has been recognized with numerous Best Paper Awards and Nominations at ACM CHI, CSCW, DIS, and ASSETS. She was named a U.S. National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow and received Northwestern’s Simon Award for Teaching Excellence and UC-San Diego’s Interdisciplinary Scholar Award. Anne Marie earned her PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego, MA in Education from Stanford University, and BS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. Prior to joining UC-Irvine, she was a tenured faculty member at Northwestern University.

Website:  https://www.ics.uci.edu/~ampiper/

HOST:  Sarah Fox & Cynthia Bennett