AccessVis

Quick Info

Project Date Feb. 1, 2012 - Present
Sponsors: NSF
Keywords: accessibility, accessible cities, information visualization, physical world accessibility, accessibility map visualizations

News

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!

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.