DUB Seminar will be conducted using Zoom, via an invitation distributed to the DUB mailing list. Participants who are logged into Zoom using a UW account will be directly admitted, and participants who are not logged in to a UW account will be admitted using a Zoom waiting room.
Academic institutions and private companies are both major contributors to our technology landscape, albeit generally taking different approaches that are primarily theoretical and future-looking in academia and consumer product focused in industry. Regardless of focus, accessibility (a11y) plays a role in both areas, or at least it should. This includes research with disabled participants, new technologies focused on enhancing abilities, and the inclusion of accessibility considerations in designs.
However, what is often not scrutinized is how accessibility and disability are viewed by members within each institution, particularly non-disabled members. These viewpoints have a significant impact on the outcomes of inclusion. For example, many academic research papers focus on projects that are “for” disabled people, many consumer products in industry are completely inaccessible and create barriers, and rarely do either groups properly acknowledge the existence, autonomy, and inventiveness of disabled people leading to outcomes like “disability dongles”.
In this presentation, I will discuss my experiences as a UX and Accessibility Specialist in academic and industry settings, reflecting on the various forms of ableism currently prevalent in both settings, in hopes of spurring more mindfulness of true inclusion.
This seminar is co-organized with UW CREATE.
Zoom will open at 12:00 PM, the talk will start at 12:05 PM.
Dr. Michele A. Williams is owner of M.A.W. Consulting, LLC - Making Accessibility Work. Her 18 years of experience include influencing top tech companies as a Senior User Experience (UX) Researcher and Accessibility Consultant, and obtaining a PhD in Human-Centered Computing focused on accessibility. A W3C-WAI Invited Expert, international speaker, published academic author, and patented inventor, she is passionate about educating and advising on technology that does not exclude disabled users.