AccessVis

Quick Info

Project Date Jan. 1, 2018 - Present
Sponsors: NSF
Keywords: accessibility, accessible cities, information visualization, physical world accessibility, accessibility map visualizations

News

Manaswi Saha Passes General Exam

May 28, 2021 | Jon

Congratulations to Manaswi Saha for successfully passing her General Exam on "Designing Interactive Computational Tools for Understanding Urban Accessibility at Scale." Thanks to committee members Bill Howe, Jeff Heer, Bo Zhao, and Anat Caspi. More pictures here.

Manaswi Saha Honored with Google PhD Fellowship

Oct 07, 2020 | Jon

We are incredibly excited and proud of PhD student Manaswi Saha, who was just honored with the 2020 Google PhD Fellowship for her work on Project Sidewalk and urban accessibility. Congrats Manaswi on this well-deserved recognition for your important work. An excerpt of the official blurb from the Allen School News website: Saha, who is one of 53 students throughout the world to be selected for a Google Fellowship, will use those tools to fill an informational gap between citizens and the local government and stakeholders showing where improvements in sidewalks need to be made to make them accessible to all. “Since the beginning of my academic career, my research interests have been towards socially impactful projects. Public service, especially for underrepresented communities, runs in my family,” Saha said. “The driving force for the work I do stems from my role model, my father, who dedicated his life towards rural and agricultural development in India. His selfless efforts inspired me to explore how technology can be used for the betterment of society. With this goal in mind, I set out to do my Ph.D. with a focus on high-value social problems.” Saha works with Froehlich in the Makeability Lab on one of its flagship ventures, Project Sidewalk. The project has two goals: to develop and study data collection methods for acquiring street-level accessibility information using crowdsourcing, machine learning, and online map imagery and to design and develop navigation and map tools for accessibility.

Manaswi Gives Google Tech Talk on Project Sidewalk

Jan 22, 2020 | Jon

Manaswi Saha gave an invited Google Tech Talk on Project Sidewalk and interactive accessibility geo-visualizations. The talk slides are here.

Manaswi Keynote Speaker at WSRO Conference

Sep 30, 2019 | Manaswi

Makeability Lab member Manaswi Saha was an invited keynote speaker to the Washingtion State Ridesharing Organization (WSRO) conference. She gave a talk on Project Sidewalk entitled Project Sidewalk: Mapping the accessibility of the physical world at scale using interactive computational tools. Congrats Manaswi and thanks for representing the Project Sidewalk team.

Manaswi Saha Accepted into ASSETS'19 Doctoral Consortium

Aug 09, 2019 | Jon

Makeability Lab PhD student, Manaswi Saha, has been accepted into the ASSETS'19 Doctoral Consortium where she will present and receive feedback on her doctoral work entitled "Interactive Tools for Assessing and Understanding Urban Accessibility At Scale". Congratulations Manaswi!

Amazon Catalyst Award for Interactive Tools for Urban Accessibility

Jul 09, 2019 | Jon

We received an Amazon Catalyst award to fund Manaswi Saha's dissertation research on “Combining Computational and Visualization Techniques to Understand Urban Accessibility at Scale.” Congrats Manaswi!

About

A screenshot of one of our AccessScore prototype visualizations

Our interactive visualizations of city accessibility are intended to address questions like "is this region accessible?" and "why does this neighborhood have poor accessibility?"

Walkability indices such as walkscore.com model the proximity and density of walkable destinations within a neighborhood. While these metrics have gained widespread use (e.g., incorporated into real-estate tools), they do not integrate accessibility-related features such as sidewalk conditions or curb ramps—thereby excluding a significant portion of the population. In this project, we explore the design, implementation, and evaluation of neighborhood accessibility models and visualizations for people with mobility impairments. We are able to overcome previous data availability challenges by using the Project Sidewalk API, which provides access to 255,000+ labels about the accessibility and location of DC sidewalks.

AccessVis is part of the larger Project Sidewalk initative.

Publications

Designing Interactive Data-Driven Tools for Understanding Urban Accessibility at Scale

Manaswi Saha

UW CS PhD Dissertation

keywords: sidewalks, sidewalk assessment, sidewalk accessibility, sidewalk problems, sidewalk visualization, urban accessibility, urban visualization

PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps

Visualizing Urban Accessibility: Investigating Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives through a Map-based Design Probe Study

Manaswi Saha, Siddhant Patil, Emily Cho, Evie Yu-Yen Cheng, Chris Horng, Devanshi Chauhan, Rachel Kangas, Richard McGovern, Anthony Li, Jeffrey Heer, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2022 | Acceptance Rate: 24.7% (637 / 2579)

keywords: design probes, urban accessibility, geo-visualization, sidewalk accessibility, urban visualization, sensemaking, sidewalk visualization

PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps

The Future of Global-Scale Spatial Data Collection and Analyses on Urban (in)Accessibility for People with Disabilities

Jon E. Froehlich, Fabio Miranda, Maryam Hosseini, Nicholas Bolten, Anat Caspi, Roberto M. Cesar Jr., Holger Dieterich, Yochai Eisenberg, Victor Pineda, Manaswi Saha, Mikey Saugstad, Andres Sevtsuk, Cláudio T. Silva, Eric K. Tokuda, Sebastian Felix Zappe

Extended Abstract Spatial Data Science Symposium 2021

keywords: accessibility, accessible urban navigation, wheelchair, urban informatics, urban accessibility, human mobility

PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Urban Accessibility Evolution • Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps • Sidewalk Gallery

Interactive Computational Tools for Assessing and Understanding Urban Accessibility At Scale

Manaswi Saha

SIGACCESS Newsletter 2020

keywords: accessibility, crowdsourcing accessibility, accessible cities, physical world accessibility, street-level accessibility, accessibility map visualizations, crowd-powered streetview accessibility, urban accessibility

PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps