Quick Info
Project Date
Feb. 1, 2012 - Present
PIs:
Jon E. Froehlich (PI)
David Jacobs (Co-PI)
Sponsors:
NSF
Keywords:
crowdsourcing accessibility,
google street view,
physical accessibility
News
On May 14th, 2023, Xia Su visited the User Interface Research Group at University of Tokyo. He introduced the Makeability Lab, as well as Project Sidewalk and RASSAR, to Professor Takeo Igarashi and the lab members of the User Interface Research Group.
May 12, 2023 | Jon
We had a wonderful time this week doing a "lab exchange" with MIT's City Form Lab. On Wednesday, Chu Li and Jon Froehlich gave a talk to the MIT group and on Friday, the MIT group reciprocated and gave a talk to us. Inspirational and fun!
Jan 11, 2023 | Jon
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.
Dec 16, 2022 | Jon
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.
Dec 14, 2022 | Xia
Huge congrats on Chu's successful presentation of Project Sidewalk at Intelligent Transportation Systems Washington 2022! A huge step for Project Sidewalk to go beyond the HCI community!
Daniel presents the recent work of the Makeability Lab at the Ability/LEAP Accessibility Research Night. Congrats to the successful talk! Here's a copy of the presentation.
At the 2022 PacTrans Region 10 Transportation Conference, Professor Froehlich received the PacTrans Outstanding Researcher Award for "outstanding research with significant outcomes, incorporating meaningful student contributions, and robust community service/leadership involvement." Professor Froehlich said "this is really a collective award recognizing the work of PhD students Manaswi Saha, Chu Li, research scientist Michael Saugstad, and our collaborators and partners across the world, including UIC's Institute on Disability and Human Development, WorldEnabled.org, Liga Peatonal, and Gemeente Amsterdam." //end
Congratulations to Maryam Hosseini on their successful PhD defense on semi-automatic sidewalk assessments. Wonderful work. Terrific presentation. Beautiful slides. Our work together played but a small role in this incredibly impactful research: Hosseini, M., Saugstad, M., Miranda, F., Sevtsuk, A., Silva, C. T., Froehlich, J. E. (2022). Towards Global-Scale Crowd+AI Techniques to Map and Assess Sidewalks for People with Disabilities. CVPR2020 Workshop: Accessibility, Vision, and Autonomy (AVA). DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2206.13677 Congratulations Maryam!
Together with Professor Fabior Miranda from the University of Illinois, Chicago and Maryam Hosseini from Rutgers/NYU, we ran a mini-symposium session on the The Future of Global-Scale Spatial Data Collection and Analyses on Urban (in)Accessibility for People with Disabilities at the 2nd Spatial Data Science Symposium 2021. In our session, we brought together experts in disability, human mobility, urban planning, and computer science to discuss state-of-the-art methods for measuring the quality, condition, and accessibility of urban infrastructure, how these methods may enable new types of geospatial analysis and visualization, and the possibilities for data-driven policy change and accessible urban development. Our overarching goal was to identify open challenges, share current work across disciplines, and spur new collaborations. We had over 50 participants join and a set of lightning talks from Anat Caspi and Nick Bolten from UW, Roberto M. Cesar Jr. and Eric K. Tokuda, from the University of São Paulo, Holger Dieterich and Sebastian Felix Zappe from Sozialhelden, Victor Pineda from the Inclusive Cities Lab and Worldenabled.org, Yochai Eisenberg from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and Andres Sevtsuk from UW. Froehlich, J. E., Miranda, F., Hosseini, M., Bolten, N., Caspi, A., Cesar Jr., R. M., Dieterich, H., Eisenberg, Y., Pineda, V., Saha, M., Saugstad, M., Sevtsuk, A., Silva, C. T., Tokuda, E. K., Zappe, S. F. (2021). The Future of Global-Scale Spatial Data Collection and Analyses on Urban (in)Accessibility for People with Disabilities. Spatial Data Science Symposium 2021.
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.
CSCW2020 June submission results were just released (link), and we were incredibly excited to find out that our paper entitled "Urban Accessibility as a Socio-Political Problem: A Multi-Stakeholder Analysis" was accepted with minor revisions. Of the 593 submissions, only 47 were chosen for 'Minor Revision' (7.9%) and 273 for 'Major Revisions' (46.0%). Through semi-structured interviews with five stakeholder groups, we examine the socio-political challenges surrounding accessible infrastructure development. The paper has some important findings around policy making, gentrification, and urban development tensions related to accessibility and extends and complements our broader research in this area (e.g., Project Sidewalk). Congrats to lead PhD student Manaswi Saha and the rest of the team!
Apr 30, 2020 | Jon
Anh Nguyen of the UW Daily wrote an article about Project Sidewalk and using "big data for pedestrian accessibility." The article features PhD student Manaswi Saha. Check it out here.
Feb 07, 2020 | Jon
The Columbus, OH deployment of Project Sidewalk was just covered by the local ABC news station. The 2.5 minute segment (view it here) featured Dean Allemang, one of the lead volunteers of the Project Sidewalk Columbus deployment.
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.
Our ASSETS'19 paper "Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery" was just recognized with the 'Best Student Paper Award'--given to only one of the 158 submissions Congrats team!
Oct 28, 2019 | Jon
Both of our ASSETS'19 papers were nominated for 'Best Paper' at ASSETS'19: 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. Jain, D., Desjardins, A., Findlater, L., Froehlich, J. E. (2019). Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing Traveler. Proceedings of ASSETS 2019. Congrats to all authors!
Aileen Zeng, our extraordinary undergrad researcher, presented Project Sidewalk to the National MS Society during their 'On the Move' luncheon in Seattle. Thanks to the MS Society for the invitation and great event.
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.
GIS enthusiast and map maker, Barbara Moreno, created an interactive visualization of Project Sidewalk data collected in Washington DC. Check out the news story and interactive tool here.
Sep 06, 2019 | Jon
Project Sidewalk was featured as the 'Tweet of the Week' in the UW Today email. Here's the tweet.
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!
Aug 01, 2019 | Jon
Project Sidewalk featured in the August issue of the Seattle Met in an article entitled "Can Project Sidewalk Use Crowdsourcing to Help Seattleites Get Around?". The article describes Project Sidewalk and includes perspectives from pedestrian activist Douglas MacDonald (a former WA State Transportation Secretary) and Ross McFarland, the SDOT Sidewalk Repair Program Manager.
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!
Jun 28, 2019 | Jon
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. Congrats also to Manaswi Saha for having her first-authored paper from her MSR internship accepted as well.
Jun 01, 2019 | Jon
Congrats to Summer 2018 interns Johnson Kuang and Shiven Bhatt from Inglemoor High School and Redmond High School, respectively, for earning direct admission into the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Last year, Johnson worked on developing this Makeability Lab website while Shiven worked on Project Sidewalk. We are incredibly fortunate to have both Johnson and Shiven back in the Makeability Lab this year. Johnson is working on the AccessVis team while Shiven is working on Urban Accessibility Evolution
Apr 30, 2019 | Manaswi
With the recent Seattle and Newberg launch of Project Sidewalk, we have been getting a lot of media attention. Here are a few articles so far (many more to come!): Newberg streets second in nation to be studied with new accessibility metric (The Newberg Graphic, April 2019) Seattle's got terrible sidewalks. You can help fix them. (Crosscut, April 2019)
Apr 18, 2019 | Jon
In recognition of our Best Paper Award at CHI'19 and to help highlight our new deployments in Seattle, WA and Newberg, OR, Project Sidewalk was featured on the College of Engineering webpage and UW News.
Apr 17, 2019 | Jon
Our rock star ugrad researcher, Aileen Zeng, presented a poster on our successful Washington DC deployment of Project Sidewalk at the Allen School's Women’s Research Day. It's exciting times for crowdsourcing sidewalk accessibility, we just deployed into two more cities--both in the Pacific Northwest: Newberg, OR and Seattle, WA.
Mar 26, 2019 | Jon
The Makeability Lab and the UbiComp Lab hosted students from Northwest High School. The high school students were all taking an Internet of Things (IoT course), which focuses not just on building IoT technology but the societal implications. For example, students are asked to consider: How can this technology help us achieve a more just and equitable world? How will we be able to ensure that these devices improve our quality of life without imprisoning us? What ethics or code of conduct should guide the IoT? Venkatesh spoke about his research supporting blind programmers, Manaswi spoke about Project Sidewalk and urban accessibility visualizations, and Dhruv spoke about his work on sound awareness tools for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Mar 15, 2019 | Jon
We are honored and excited that the Makeability Lab received two 'Best Paper Awards' at CHI'19, which are given to the top 2% of all submissions at the conference. Anchored Audio Sampling: A Seamless Method for Exploring Children’s Thoughts During Deployment Studies by Alexis Hiniker, Jon Froehlich, Mingrui Ray Zhang, Erin Beneteau Project Sidewalk: A Web-based Crowdsourcing Tool for Collecting Sidewalk Accessibility Data At Scale by Manaswi Saha, Michael Saugstad, Hanuma Teja Maddali, Aileen Zeng, Ryan Holland, Steven Bower, Aditya Dash, Sage Chen, Anthony Li, Kotaro Hara, Jon Froehlich
About
Project Sidewalk
Building tools for collecting street-level accessibility information from every street in the world and enable design and development of novel set of location-based technologies for accessibility
This project describes a two-pronged vision: first, to develop scalable data collection methods for acquiring sidewalk accessibility information using a combination of crowdsourcing, computer vision, and online map imagery, and second, to use this new data to design, develop, and evaluate a novel set of navigation and map tools for accessibility. Our overarching goal is to transform the ways in which accessibility information is collected and visualized for every sidewalk, street, and building façade in America.
Publications
Scaling Crowd+AI Sidewalk Accessibility Assessments: Initial Experiments Examining Label Quality and Cross-city Training on Performance
Poster Proceedings of ASSETS'22 | Acceptance Rate: 58.9% (43 / 73)
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment
A Pilot Study of Sidewalk Equity in Seattle Using Crowdsourced Sidewalk Assessment Data
UrbanAccess 2022
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Sidewalk Equity
The Future of Urban Accessibility for People with Disabilities: Data Collection, Analytics, Policy, and Tools
Extended Abstract ASSETS'22 Workshop on The Future of Urban Accessibility
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Urban Accessibility Evolution • Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment • Accessibility-Infused Maps
Participatory Design of Crowd+AI Tools to Map, Analyze, and Visualize Sidewalk Accessibility
Extended Abstract Proceedings of TRANSED 2022
Towards Global-Scale Crowd+AI Techniques to Map and Assess Sidewalks for People with Disabilities
CVPR2022 Workshop: Accessibility, Vision, and Autonomy (AVA)
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment
Visualizing Urban Accessibility: Investigating Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives through a Map-based Design Probe Study
Proceedings of CHI 2022
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
Experimental Crowd+AI Approaches to Track Accessibility Features in Sidewalk Intersections Over Time
Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2021 | Acceptance Rate: 61.8% (55 / 89)
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Urban Accessibility Evolution
Sidewalk Gallery: An Interactive, Filterable Image Gallery of Over 500,000 Sidewalk Accessibility Problems
Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2021
|
Acceptance Rate: 61.8%
(55 / 89)
|
Best Artifact Runner-up Award
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Sidewalk Gallery
Urban Accessibility as a Socio-Political Problem: A Multi-Stakeholder Analysis
CSCW 2020
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Sidewalk Accessibility in the US and Mexico: Policies, Tools, and A Preliminary Case Study
Extended Abstract Workshop Proceedings of Civic Tech 2020
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Towards Mapping and Assessing Sidewalk Accessibility Across Socio-cultural and Geographic Contexts
Extended Abstract Data4Good
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Interactive Computational Tools for Assessing and Understanding Urban Accessibility At Scale
SIGACCESS Newsletter 2020
PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk • AccessVis • Accessibility-Infused Maps
Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery
Proceedings of ASSETS 2019
|
Acceptance Rate: 25.9%
(41 / 158)
|
Best Paper Award
PDF | doi | Citation | Code | Project Sidewalk • Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment
Project Sidewalk: A Web-based Crowdsourcing Tool for Collecting Sidewalk Accessibility Data at Scale
Proceedings of CHI 2019
|
Acceptance Rate: 23.8%
(705 / 2960)
|
Best Paper Award
PDF | doi | Citation | Code | Project Sidewalk
Grand challenges in accessible maps
Interactions
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • 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
A Feasibility Study of Using Google Street View and Computer Vision to Track the Evolution of Urban Accessibility
Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2018
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Urban Accessibility Evolution
SIG: Making Maps Accessible and Putting Accessibility in Maps
Extended Abstract Proceedings of CHI 2018
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Accessibility-Infused Maps
A Pilot Deployment of an Online Tool for Large-Scale Virtual Auditing of Urban Accessibility
Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2017
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Scalable Methods to Collect and Visualize Sidewalk Accessibility Data for People with Mobility Impairments
UMD CS PhD Dissertation
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Temporal Tracking Urban Areas using Google Street View
UMD CS MS Thesis
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
The Design of Assistive Location-based Technologies for People with Ambulatory Disabilities: A Formative Study
Proceedings of CHI 2016 | Acceptance Rate: 25.0% (600 / 2400)
PDF | doi | Citation | Accessibility-Infused Maps • Project Sidewalk
Characterizing and Visualizing Physical World Accessibility at Scale Using Crowdsourcing, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning
SIGACCESS Newsletter '15
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Scalable methods to collect and visualize sidewalk accessibility data for people with mobility impairments
Extended Abstract Proceedings of UIST 2014
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Tohme: Detecting Curb Ramps in Google Street View Using Crowdsourcing, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning
Proceedings of UIST 2014
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Tohme
An Initial Study of Automatic Curb Ramp Detection with Crowdsourced Verification using Google Street View Images
Poster Proceedings of HCOMP 2013
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Tohme
Exploring Early Solutions for Automatically Identifying Inaccessible Sidewalks in the Physical World using Google Street View
HCIC2013 Workshop
PDF | Citation | Project Sidewalk • Tohme
Combining Crowdsourcing and Google Street View to Identify Street-level Accessibility Problems
Proceedings of CHI 2013
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
A feasibility study of crowdsourcing and google street view to determine sidewalk accessibility
Poster Proceedings of ASSETS 2012
PDF | doi | Citation | Project Sidewalk
Videos
Project Sidewalk Deployment in Washington DC
Introducing Project Sidewalk: Mapping the Accessibility of the World
Characterizing Street-level Accessibility at Scale
Talks
Dec. 14, 2022 | ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems)
Tacoma, Washington
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
Sept. 30, 2019 | WSRO 2019 Keynote
Spokane, WA
PDF | PPTX | Project Sidewalk
May 7, 2019 | CHI'19
Glasgow, UK
PDF | PPTX | Project Sidewalk
Oct. 9, 2018 | Change Seminar
University of Washington, Seattle
Nov. 15, 2017 | UW CSE Affiliates 2017
Seattle, WA
Oct. 13, 2017 | DUB Retreat
University of Washington, Seattle
PDF | PPTX | Project Sidewalk | MakerWear | Ondulé | BodyVis
June 7, 2017 | UMD CS Staff Talk
University of Maryland, College Park
PDF | PPTX | HandSight | Project Sidewalk | MakerWear | BodyVis
May 25, 2017 | HCIL Symposium 2017
College Park, Maryland
April 13, 2017 | HCDE Invited Talk
University of Washington, Seattle
PDF | PPTX | HandSight | Project Sidewalk | MakerWear | BodyVis
April 11, 2017 | UW CSE Colloquium
University of Washington, Seattle
PDF | PPTX | HandSight | Project Sidewalk | MakerWear | BodyVis
April 6, 2017 | Lecture Series at the Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences
LTS Auditorium, College Park, MD
PDF | HandSight | Project Sidewalk | Pervasive Thermography | MakerWear | BodyVis
Feb. 8, 2017 | WalkHackNight II
Arlington, Virginia
Nov. 7, 2016 | Diversity in Computing Summit 2016
College Park, Maryland
Nov. 3, 2016 | Technica: Tech+X Talk Series
University of Maryland, College Park
Nov. 3, 2016 | GroupSight @ HCOMP2016
Austin, Texas
Project Members
Mikey Saugstad
May 2017 - Present
Research Scientist
Computer Science
University of Washington
Project Sidewalk | Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment | Urban Accessibility Evolution
Manaswi Saha
Aug 2016 - Present
PhD Student
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington
Project Sidewalk | Accessibility-Infused Maps | AccessVis
Michael Duan
Dec 2019 - Present
Undergrad
Computer Science
University of Washington
Project Sidewalk | Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment | Sidewalk Gallery
Sho Kiami
Jun 2020 - Present
Undergrad
Computer Science
University of Washington
Project Sidewalk | Deep Learning for Sidewalk Assessment
