Stanford Seminar - Rethinking Design for Accessibility

February 23, 2024
Anne Marie Piper, University of California, Irvine

Approximately 61 million Americans, or one in four U.S. adults, have a disability that affects daily life. Despite the prevalence of disability, accessibility is often 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 draw on theories from disability studies to argue for a view of accessibility that is collaboratively negotiated, situated, and enacted. 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. 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.

About the speaker:
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 by NSF, including a CAREER award, the Mellon Foundation, and Microsoft, and has been recognized with numerous Best Paper Awards and Nominations at ACM CHI, CSCW, DIS, and ASSETS. 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