About Us

The Makeability Lab is an advanced research lab in Human-AI directed by Professor Jon E. Froehlich in the Allen School of Computer Science at the University of Washington. We specialize in Human-Computer Interaction and applied machine learning for high-impact problems in accessibility, computational urban science, and augmented reality. To learn more, see our recent projects below and read our lab handbook.

Interested in working with us? If you are a current UW undergrad, UW MS student, or local Seattle high school student, please apply here. If you are a prospective PhD student, apply to the UW CSE PhD program and mention Professor Froehlich. Before applying, please read our lab handbook.

Recent Projects

This is the thumbnail image for the project StreetReaderAI

StreetReaderAI

2024 – Present

This is the thumbnail image for the project AccessParkCV

AccessParkCV

2023 – Present

This is the thumbnail image for the project GeoQA^3

GeoQA^3

2024 – Present

This is the thumbnail image for the project RampNet

RampNet

2025 – Present

SonoCraftAR teaser figuer showing a DHH user describing their desired sound-reactive AR interface; LLM agents generating UI and animation code, and then redering a personalized AR interface that reacts to sound

SonoCraftAR

2025 – Present

This is the thumbnail image for the project Accessibility Scout

Accessibility Scout

2024 – Present

A teaser image for FlyMeThrough

FlyMeThrough

2024 – Present

This is the thumbnail image for the project Project Sidewalk

Project Sidewalk

2012 – Present

See All Projects >

Recent Papers

Street View for Whom? An Initial Examination of Google Street View’s Urban Coverage and Socioeconomic Indicators in the US

GeoIndustry 2025 To Appear

Zeyu Wang, Jon E. Froehlich

PDF | Citation | Code

Making Street View Accessible Using Context-Aware Multimodal AI: A Demo of StreetReaderAI

ASSETS 2025 To Appear

Jon E. Froehlich, Alexander J. Fiannaca, Nimer Jaber, Victor Tsaran, Shaun K. Kane

PDF | doi | Citation | StreetReaderAI

A Demo of GeoQA3 : Towards An Accessible AI-based Question-Answering System for Geoanalytics

ASSETS 2025 To Appear

Chu Li, Rock Pang, Arnavi Chheda-Kothary, Ather Sharif, Henok Assalif, Jeffrey Heer, Jon E. Froehlich

PDF | doi | Citation | GeoQA^3

"Where Can I Park?" Understanding Human Perspectives and Scalably Detecting Disability Parking from Aerial Imagery

ASSETS 2025 To Appear

Jared Hwang, Chu Li, Hanbyul Kang, Maryam Hosseini, Jon E. Froehlich

PDF | Citation | Code | AccessParkCV

“Does the cafe entrance look accessible? Where is the door?” Towards Geospatial AI Agents for Visual Inquiries

ICCV Workshop 2025 To Appear

Jon E. Froehlich, Jared Hwang, Zeyu Wang, John O'Meara, Xia Su, William Huang, Yang Zhang, Alexander J. Fiannaca, Philip Nelson, Shaun K. Kane

RampNet: A Two-Stage Pipeline for Bootstrapping Curb Ramp Detection in Streetscape Images from Open Government Metadata

ICCV Workshop 2025 To Appear

John O'Meara, Jared Hwang, Zeyu Wang, Mikey Saugstad, Jon E. Froehlich

PDF | doi | Citation | Code | RampNet

See All Papers >

Recent Videos

FlyMeThrough: Human-AI Collaborative 3D Indoor Mapping with Commodity Drones

YouTube | FlyMeThrough

StreetViewAI: Making Street View Accessible Using Context-Aware Multimodal AI

YouTube | StreetReaderAI

Accessibility Scout: Personalized Accessibility Scans of Built Environments

YouTube | Accessibility Scout

Recent Talks

SonoCraftAR: Towards Supporting Personalized Authoring of Sound-Reactive AR Interfaces by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users

Oct. 8, 2025 | IDEATExR

Daejeon, South Korea

Jaewook Lee, Davin Win Kyi, Leejun Kim, Jenny Peng, Gagyeom Lim, Jeremy Zhengqi Huang, Dhruv Jain, Jon E. Froehlich

PDF | PPTX | SonoCraftAR

FlyMeThrough: Human-AI Collaborative 3D Indoor Mapping with Commodity Drones

Sept. 30, 2025 | UIST 2025

Busan, South Korea

PDF | PPTX Paper | FlyMeThrough

ImaginateAR: AI-Assisted In-Situ Authoring in Augmented Reality

Sept. 28, 2025 | UIST

Busan, Korea

PDF | PPTX Paper

StreetReaderAI: Making Street View Accessible Using Context-Aware Multimodal AI

Sept. 28, 2025 | UIST

Busan, Korea

Jon E. Froehlich, Alexander J. Fiannaca, Nimer Jaber, Victor Tsaran, Shaun K. Kane

PDF | PPTX | StreetReaderAI

Design and Fabrication for Tangible Interaction with Real-World Objects and Environments

May 9, 2025 | UMBC Seminar

Baltimore, MD

Daniel Campos Zamora

NightLight: Passively Mapping Nighttime Sidewalk Light Data for Improved Pedestrian Routing

April 29, 2025 | CHI 2025

Yokohama, Japan

Daniel Campos Zamora, Joseph Breda

PDF | PPTX | NightLight

SonifyAR: Context-Aware Sound Generation in Augmented Reality

Oct. 13, 2024 | UIST

Pittsburgh, PA

PDF | PPTX Paper | SonifyAR: Context-Aware Sound Generation in Augmented Reality

CookAR: Affordance Augmentations in Wearable AR to Support Kitchen Tool Interactions for People with Low Vision

Oct. 13, 2024 | UIST

Pittsburgh, PA

PDF | PPTX Paper | CookAR

Sponsors

Makeability Lab research is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors. Our research findings, opinions, and/or recommendations may not reflect their views.

We design, build, and evaluate new interactive tools and techniques to address pressing societal challenges. Makeability refers both to how our technological innovations make new abilities possible for humans as well as our educational mission to help students gain new abilities as they learn and grow through research, invention, and human-centered design.