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Welcome to the Make4All Group. We create general solutions that empower people with disabilities to accomplish their goals, including programming, physical computing, sports, and more. Our group applies technologies such as 3D printing, knitting and other fabrication technologies to improving inclusion in and accessibility of our digital future, and to translate our work to policy and open source settings.

Recent Projects

Bar chart titled showing Lecture Topics Combined ALT text Quality by Condition

Context in AI STEM ALT Text Generation

Screenshot of the a11yhood.org search interface with the title "Welcome to A11yhood" and text explaining that you can search and build collections. The sirch area says search for AT using text or URLs.

Disabled Innovators & Innovations

Images from an embroidered version of "where the wild things are" showing a wooden boat floating on waves with shells as embroidered beads, and a wooden bed frame with a flannel quilt and a fox-shaped head floating to its left.

Embroidering Tactile Graphics

ALT text generated for two charts includes (at left): A radial line plot titled ’avg. Monthly hours of sunshine in seattle’. The x-axis ranges from jan to dec using a datetime scale and the y-axis ranges from 0 to 312 using a linear scale. Avg. Hours of sunshine is plotted in orange. Avg. Hours of sunshine has a minimum value of y=52 at x=dec, a maximum value of y=312 at x=july, and an average of y=180.2. (at right) A 7x6 heatmap titled ’number of points from combined gaussians’. The x-axis ranges from -8 to 6, the y-axis ranges from -4 to 8, and number of gaussian points is plotted on the z-axis from 0 to 61, all using linear scales. The data has a minimum value of z=0 at (-8, -4), a maximum value of z=61 at (0, -4), and an average of z=14.19.

MatPlotAlt

A table with an assortment of cane tips, cane handles and feet in various shapes.

“A Tool for Freedom”

Figure 1: The flowchart offers a map through the results. At the top we have communication access, which branches into two directions: 1) access needs (e.g., caption use, speechreading) and 2) language landscape (e.g., frequency, context, comfort, overall repertoire). There are two way arrows between these two, representing the question 'How do these interact/inform/shape each other?'. Below the question, as answer we have two groups: first, factors for a particular langauge (fluency, linguistic affordances, cultural perceptions) and second, practices across languages (translation, transliteration, translanguaging).

Toward Language Justice

Recent Posts

  • two 3d printed devices for teaching about physics. Both have moving parts that connect concepts such as angular velocity and momentum in a tactile farmat.
    Visit to Tsukuba Tech
    Tsukuba Tech is (as far as I am aware) the only university in the world to focus on Deaf and blind students (the closest similar option being Gallaudet, in the US, which focuses on Deaf students). I reached out to ask if I could visit, hoping to learn more about their history, offerings and opportunities … Continue reading Visit to Tsukuba Tech →
  • Screen shot of Jennifer Mankoff talking about AI (a White person with short, silver hair in a dark green sweater, sitting in a living room with white bookshelves and a storage room in the background. Text on screen reads "One of the things to me that seems unique about AI that maybe relates to how we handle its availability in a larger context"
    Translating Accessibility Research Through Policy Work
    Over the last few years, thanks in part to the mentorship and encouragement of Jonathan Lazar and other members of the CREATE Advisory Board, and the emphasis on translation in NIDILRR, I have begun trying to figure out how an accessibility researcher can use policy as an approach to translation. I recognize that basic research … Continue reading Translating Accessibility Research Through Policy Work →
  • Four presenters sit at a table. Behind them is a sign that says amazon in Braille and finger spelling, with accessibility below that. To the right of the rightmost presenter is a screen showing captioning, and to the right of that is a projector showing a slide with the contents A11yhood.org, Jen Mankoff, CREATE and a logo showing ahood spelled with accessibility symbols
    CSUN Trip Notes
    Just got back from my second time attending CSUN. More and more it’s becoming a place I see as home. It has its foibles, but overall it’s a place where I am able to connect with the larger disability community, see great presentations, find other likeminded accessibility researchers, view up and coming technology, and learn … Continue reading CSUN Trip Notes →
  • This is collage from the UW Daily from the 1970s-a students with disabilities and in wheelchairs advocating to ramp the curves–a now ubiquitous example of universal design in action.
    What is the future of accessibility?
    I have been asked to present a talk about the future of accessibility. But I feel obliged to talk about the future we face if this dismantling of our rights succeeds. Because we know what that world will look like — we have only to look to the past.