Project Description

2015–Present
To investigate socio-political challenges in addressing urban accessibility for people with disabilities, we conducted a series of interviews and focus groups with key stakeholder groups, including: people with disabilities, caregivers, disability advocates, transit officials, and policy makers. We identify key needs and desires of each group, how they differ, and how they interact with each other in the civic ecosystem to bring about change. We found that people, politics, and money were intrinsically tied to underfunded accessibility improvement projects—without continued support from the public and the political leadership, existing funding may also disappear. Using the insights from these interviews, we explore how technology may enhance our stakeholders’ decision-making processes and facilitate accessible infrastructure development.

Publications

Urban Accessibility as a Socio-Political Problem: A Multi-Stakeholder Analysis

Manaswi Saha, Devanshi Chauhan, Siddhant Patil, Rachel Kangas, Jeffrey Heer, Jon E. Froehlich

CSCW 2020

The Design of Assistive Location-based Technologies for People with Ambulatory Disabilities: A Formative Study

Kotaro Hara, Christine Chan, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of CHI 2016 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (600 / 2400)