Huge congratulations to recently graduated Makeability Lab PhD student—now Michigan professor—Dhruv Jain on being recognized with the William Chan Dissertation Award. The Allen School has a lovely writeup, which quotes some of my thoughts worth repeating here. “Dhruv’s dissertation research makes fundamental advances in the design of sound sensing and feedback systems for people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” Froehlich said. “Throughout his dissertation work, Dhruv has worked closely with the DHH community to understand diverse needs and evaluate his systems, including through large online surveys, interviews and field deployments.” Jain’s own experiences as a DHH individual informed his research and helped shape his focus on the user experience.  “Dhruv’s dissertation not only exemplifies the human-centered design process in the creation of accessible technologies but also makes transformative technical innovations in integrating AI and HCI to improve information access,” Froehlich added. “As a testament to its impact, his work has received multiple paper awards and a Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant, and SoundWatch has been released and downloaded by over 2,000 Android watch users worldwide.” As rather surreal twist, I was honored with the same award a decade ago. It is both humbling and even more fulfilling to have one of my own students receive the award. Congrats Dhruv!

We were honored and delighted to give a talk on SciStarter in honor of MLK Jr.'s Day of Service. You can view the slides here. In the words of Dr. King: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere These words still resonate today as we continue to attempt to address systemic inequities in human mobility and transit access—for which Project Sidewalk is but one small movement forward. SciStarter is a platform for community science featuring over 1,000 research projects, including Project Sidewalk. If you join SciStarter, you can get credit for using Project Sidewalk—just make sure you're using the same email addresses on both platforms.

Huge news: Michael Duan was selected as a Finalist for the extremely competitive CRA Undergraduate Research Award based on his work on Scaling Crowd+AI Sidewalk Accessibility Assessments and Sidewalk Gallery. This is the first time in the Makeability Lab's history that one of our ugrads earned such a distinction. Congratulations Michael on this well-deserved recognition. The Allen School should be producing a story about this soon. See the full list of awardees here.

On Wed, Dec 7th, we had our Makeability Lab Holiday Potluck. It was so wonderful (and delicious) to share and consume the various foods—each which reflect part of who we are. Incredibly, it was my first time meeting a few students in person due to the pandemic! I'm also thankful that Mikey Saugstad and their sister could join as a special guest—all the way from SoCal—as well as a few MHCI+D students working in the Makeability Lab this year. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday, Jon  

Huge congratulations to recently graduated Makeability Lab PhD student—now Michigan professor—Dhruv Jain on being recognized with the William Chan Dissertation Award. The Allen School has a lovely writeup, which quotes some of my thoughts worth repeating here.

“Dhruv’s dissertation research makes fundamental advances in the design of sound sensing and feedback systems for people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” Froehlich said. “Throughout his dissertation work, Dhruv has worked closely with the DHH community to understand diverse needs and evaluate his systems, including through large online surveys, interviews and field deployments.”

Jain’s own experiences as a DHH individual informed his research and helped shape his focus on the user experience. 

“Dhruv’s dissertation not only exemplifies the human-centered design process in the creation of accessible technologies but also makes transformative technical innovations in integrating AI and HCI to improve information access,” Froehlich added. “As a testament to its impact, his work has received multiple paper awards and a Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant, and SoundWatch has been released and downloaded by over 2,000 Android watch users worldwide.”

As rather surreal twist, I was honored with the same award a decade ago. It is both humbling and even more fulfilling to have one of my own students receive the award. Congrats Dhruv!

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing."

Read more on the Allen School news page.

It's my pleasure to announce that Dhruv Jain passed his General Exam entitled Sound Sensing & Feedback Techniques for d/Deaf & Hard of Hearing Users: A Dissertation Proposal. His dissertation work was thoughtfully presented, well rehearsed, and even included two live demos (of HomeSound and of SoundWatch). Congrats DJ!

Thanks also to the wonderful committee, including co-chair Professor Findlater and fellow committee members Professors Mankoff, Ladner, Wobbrock, and Bigham—literally an all-star cast of HCI+accessibility experts.

You can download the slides here or watch the whole thing on YouTube!

A few screenshots of the talk (all but the presenter + interpreters had video off):

The Makeability Lab had four papers accepted to CHI this year. The acceptance rate was 24% (760 accepts of 3126 submissions). Congrats to the lead PhD students: Steven Goodman (HCDE), Dhruv Jain (CSE), Seokbin Kang (CS), Wendy Roldan (HCDE), and all our wonderful collaborators.

• Goodman, S., Kirchner, S., Guttman, R., Jain, D., Froehlich, J., Findlater, L. Evaluating Smartwatch-based Sound Feedback for Deaf and Hard-of-hearing Users Across Contexts, CHI2020
• Jain D., Mack., K., Amrous, A., Wright, M., Goodman, S., Findlater, L., Froehlich, J. HomeSound: An Iterative Field Deployment of an In-Home Sound Awareness System for Deaf or Hard of Hearing Users, CHI2020
• Kang, S., Shokeen, E., Byrne, V., Norooz, L., Bonsignore, E., Williams-Pierce, C., Froehlich, J. ARMath: Augmenting Everyday Life with Math Learning, CHI2020
• Roldan, W., Gao, X., Marie, A., Hishikawa, T, Li, Z., Zhang, E., Froehlich, J., Yip, J. Opportunities and Challenges in Involving Users in Project-Based HCI Education, CHI2020

We plan to post the camera-ready versions of the papers and some videos in January!

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing."

Read more on the Allen School news page.

Dhruv Jain's Deaf Travel Autoethnography was covered by the UW Daily. Read the article here.

Both of our ASSETS'19 papers were nominated for 'Best Paper' at ASSETS'19:

1. Weld, G., Jang, E., Li, A., Zeng, A., Heimerl, K., Froehlich, J. E. (2019). Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery. Proceedings of ASSETS 2019.
2. Jain, D., Desjardins, A., Findlater, L., Froehlich, J. E. (2019). Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing Traveler. Proceedings of ASSETS 2019.

We were honored that both of our papers submitted to ASSETS'19 were accepted for publication:

• Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing Traveler led by UW CSE PhD student, Dhruv Jain, and co-authored by Jain, Audrey Desjardins (School of Art + Art History + Design), Leah Findlater (HCDE), and Jon Froehlich
• Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery led by UW CSE PhD students, Galen Weld and Esther Jang, and co-authored by Weld, Jang, Anthony Li (UMD ugrad), Aileen Zeng (UW CSE ugrad), Kurtis Heimerl (UW CSE prof), and Jon Froehlich.

Huge congratulations to recently graduated Makeability Lab PhD student—now Michigan professor—Dhruv Jain on being recognized with the William Chan Dissertation Award. The Allen School has a lovely writeup, which quotes some of my thoughts worth repeating here.

“Dhruv’s dissertation research makes fundamental advances in the design of sound sensing and feedback systems for people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” Froehlich said. “Throughout his dissertation work, Dhruv has worked closely with the DHH community to understand diverse needs and evaluate his systems, including through large online surveys, interviews and field deployments.”

Jain’s own experiences as a DHH individual informed his research and helped shape his focus on the user experience. 

“Dhruv’s dissertation not only exemplifies the human-centered design process in the creation of accessible technologies but also makes transformative technical innovations in integrating AI and HCI to improve information access,” Froehlich added. “As a testament to its impact, his work has received multiple paper awards and a Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant, and SoundWatch has been released and downloaded by over 2,000 Android watch users worldwide.”

As rather surreal twist, I was honored with the same award a decade ago. It is both humbling and even more fulfilling to have one of my own students receive the award. Congrats Dhruv!

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing."

Read more on the Allen School news page.

It's my pleasure to announce that Dhruv Jain passed his General Exam entitled Sound Sensing & Feedback Techniques for d/Deaf & Hard of Hearing Users: A Dissertation Proposal. His dissertation work was thoughtfully presented, well rehearsed, and even included two live demos (of HomeSound and of SoundWatch). Congrats DJ!

Thanks also to the wonderful committee, including co-chair Professor Findlater and fellow committee members Professors Mankoff, Ladner, Wobbrock, and Bigham—literally an all-star cast of HCI+accessibility experts.

You can download the slides here or watch the whole thing on YouTube!

A few screenshots of the talk (all but the presenter + interpreters had video off):

Members of the newly launched UW CREATE accessibility center won all three top awards at ASSETS2020—the top publication venue in accessibility research—including Best Artifact for our SoundWatch work, Best Paper awarded to Professor Leah Findlater and her PhD student Lotus Zhang, Best Student Paper awarded to PhD student Megan Hofmann and colleagues (including her advisor and CREATE co-director Jennifer Mankoff). Congrats all!

Relatedly, Sarah McQuate wrote a lovely article on our SoundWatch work—check it out!

Huge congratulations to recently graduated Makeability Lab PhD student—now Michigan professor—Dhruv Jain on being recognized with the William Chan Dissertation Award. The Allen School has a lovely writeup, which quotes some of my thoughts worth repeating here.

“Dhruv’s dissertation research makes fundamental advances in the design of sound sensing and feedback systems for people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” Froehlich said. “Throughout his dissertation work, Dhruv has worked closely with the DHH community to understand diverse needs and evaluate his systems, including through large online surveys, interviews and field deployments.”

Jain’s own experiences as a DHH individual informed his research and helped shape his focus on the user experience. 

“Dhruv’s dissertation not only exemplifies the human-centered design process in the creation of accessible technologies but also makes transformative technical innovations in integrating AI and HCI to improve information access,” Froehlich added. “As a testament to its impact, his work has received multiple paper awards and a Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant, and SoundWatch has been released and downloaded by over 2,000 Android watch users worldwide.”

As rather surreal twist, I was honored with the same award a decade ago. It is both humbling and even more fulfilling to have one of my own students receive the award. Congrats Dhruv!

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing."

Read more on the Allen School news page.

It's my pleasure to announce that Dhruv Jain passed his General Exam entitled Sound Sensing & Feedback Techniques for d/Deaf & Hard of Hearing Users: A Dissertation Proposal. His dissertation work was thoughtfully presented, well rehearsed, and even included two live demos (of HomeSound and of SoundWatch). Congrats DJ!

Thanks also to the wonderful committee, including co-chair Professor Findlater and fellow committee members Professors Mankoff, Ladner, Wobbrock, and Bigham—literally an all-star cast of HCI+accessibility experts.

You can download the slides here or watch the whole thing on YouTube!

A few screenshots of the talk (all but the presenter + interpreters had video off):

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing."

Read more on the Allen School news page.