Disabled people live at the intersection of multiple identities that shape their access needs and technology experiences. Designing equitable systems requires preparing future technologists to critically engage with how technologies interact with systems of oppression. We approached a quarter-long capstone course with one central question: Do the processes and expectations of engineering education (in the context of an accessibility capstone) adequately incorporate multiple intersectional perspectives? By using this as a guiding pedagogical framework, we uncovered gaps in standard processes and requirements and developed practical solutions for addressing them. We outline the theoretical foundations informing the course, its structure and implementation, and reflect on the tensions that emerged throughout the course. We offer considerations for educators seeking to meaningfully integrate intersectional accessibility into computing education.
In this paper, we examine why promises of empowerment through AT continue to fall short for many underserved populations, even as new innovations emerge every day. We found that low-income, racially diverse, and disabled families usually bear higher costs of access due to bureaucratic red tape that disproportionately affects them. We argue that accessibility research needs a new framework — one that recognizes the sociopolitical realities shaping how families navigate and sustain access. To that end, we introduce the concept of minor resistance to capture the everyday strategies families devise to exercise agency within unequal power dynamics. By focusing on these grassroots practices, we show how technology can be reimagined to help communities build collective power.
This paper examines prevailing understandings of creativity in creative computing research through the lens of feminist epistemology. We analyze “creativity support” as a construct that encodes diferent defnitions of creative work. Drawing on existing literature and practices, the paper surfaces four views about creative work that underpin current creative technologies and HCI research: problemsolving, cognitive emergence, embodied action, and tool-mediated expert activity. Each view makes diferent claims about the role of computing in creative work and the creative subject assumed. We articulate the attendant politics of each view and illustrate how critical feminist epistemology can serve as an analytical tool to reason about the trade-ofs of various creativity defnitions. The paper concludes with recommendations for integrating feminist values into creativity-oriented HCI research.
Stacy Hsueh, Beatrice Vincenzi, Akshata Murdeshwar, and Marianela Ciolf Felice. 2023. Cripping Data Visualizations: Crip Technoscience as a Critical Lensfor Designing Digital Access. In The 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’23), October 22–25, 2023, New York, NY, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 16 pages. https://doi.org/10. 1145/3597638.3608427
Data visualizations have become the primary mechanism for engaging with quantitative information. However, many of these visualizations are inaccessible to blind and low vision people. This paper investigates the challenge of designing accessible data visualizations through the lens of crip technoscience. We present four speculative design case studies that conceptually explore four qualities of access built on crip wisdom: access as an ongoing process, a frictional practice, an aesthetic experience, and transformation. Each speculative study embodies inquiry and futuring, making visible common assumptions about access and exploring how an alternative crip-informed framework can shape designs that foreground the creativity of disabled people. We end by presenting tactics for designing digital access that de-centers the innovation discourse.
Stacy Hsueh is a postdoctoral researcher at UW’s Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE), working with Jen Mankoff and Anat Caspi.
Her work uses critical theories to interrogate computing norms and employs design methods to explore disability-led design. Her current research focuses on understanding experiences of precarity in underserved communities and examining the role of technology plays in challenging or reinforcing structural inequities.
