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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!
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?"
Publications
Designing Interactive Data-Driven Tools for Understanding Urban Accessibility at Scale
UW CS PhD Dissertation
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps
Visualizing Urban Accessibility: Investigating Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives through a Map-based Design Probe Study
Proceedings of CHI 2022 | Acceptance Rate: 24.7% (637 / 2579)
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
Extended Abstract Spatial Data Science Symposium 2021
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
SIGACCESS Newsletter 2020
PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps
Interactively Modeling and Visualizing Neighborhood Accessibility at Scale: An Initial Study of Washington DC
Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2018
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Accessibility-Infused Maps • AccessVis
Talks
Dec. 13, 2021 | Spatial Data Science Symposium 2021
Virtual
PDF | PPTX | Accessibility-Infused Maps | Project Sidewalk | AccessVis
May 28, 2021 | PhD Generals Exam
Virtual
PDF | Accessibility-Infused Maps | Project Sidewalk | AccessVis
Jan. 22, 2020 | Google Tech Talk
Seattle, WA
PDF | PPTX | Project Sidewalk | Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment | AccessVis | Accessibility-Infused Maps | Urban Accessibility Evolution | Transportation Analytics
Project Members


Jeffrey Heer
Sep 2018 - Present
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington
Project Sidewalk | AccessVis | Accessibility-Infused Maps

Manaswi Saha
Sep 2016 - Present
PhD Student
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington
Project Sidewalk | Accessibility-Infused Maps | AccessVis