Disability Dongles & Accessibility

# Disability Dongles & Accessibility
Accessibility, Disability Dongles & the first assignment

CSE443: Winter 2026; Jennifer Mankoff (Last Edited: 2026-01-06). <a href="/courses/cse443/26wi/slides/accessibility.html">Live View: /slides/accessibility.html</a>

Important Reminder: check zoom & captioning

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# Announcements

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## Slide printing

- Should be working now
- [Print] button at bottom right of slides generates HTML you can print

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## Attendance Confirmation

We want to make sure everyone understands the attendance expectations 
- Please check your schedules now to ensure that you will be available for the final exam
- Now is a good time to ask any questions you have about attendance requirements
- Fill out [the attendance policy confirmation form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc3GKIQkaM4TjOBV_9RF6trl34BuY8_GToTmjzsKgkgW2zqqQ/viewform?usp=dialog) **by EOD Thursday** to confirm you've done so

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## Group Assignments
Groups for assignment one will be finalized tomorrow. If you have a concern about assigned groupmates, please [fill the partner exclusion form out](https://forms.gle/3AjPYCVD8bXs8tGj6) **by EOD Wednesday (today)**

You can reach out to us on Ed if you miss this deadline or something comes up later in the quarter.

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# Accessibility

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## Accessibile Design (1/2)

Accommodation
- Co-producing access for all participants in a space or event
- Legally mandated, but also so much more

--
[Universal Design](https://universaldesign.ie/about-universal-design)
- One design works for everybody 
- Typical example: curb cuts

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## Accessibile Design (2/2)
[Ability-Based Design](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3148051)  -  Jacob Wobbrock
- Technology that adapts to the abilities of the user in their current context

[Design for User Empowerment](https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/2723869) - Richard Ladner
- Centers self-determination
- Requires user to help implement

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background-image: url(img/accessibility/jobs-iphone.jpg)

.bottom[
## .white[Case Study: The iPhone (1/2)]

.white[
MacWorld Keynote '07
]]

???
Originally neither universal design nor ability-based design

Here is an [interview (4:03-4:32) with Liz Jackson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvgXeCe6n10): iPhone screens are a product of accessible technology created from the ingenuity of a disabled person.

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background-image: url(img/accessibility/jobs-iphone.jpg)

.bottom[
## .white[Case Study: The iPhone (2/2)]
.white[The phone Jobs is holding is small, flat, and without any tangible information accessible to a blind person]
]

???
Originally neither universal design nor ability-based design

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.left-column40[
## Sliderule:

The first mobile screen reader]

.right-column60[
![:img  A picture titled SIGACCESS Lasting Impact Award showing Jake Wobbrock; Shaun Kane; and Jeff Bigham holding their lasting impact award placards and smiling,100%, width](img/accessibility/sliderule.png)
]
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## Sliderule:

The first mobile screen reader

![:youtube Sliderule Video, 496IAx6_xys]

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## Translation to iPhone

.column[
.centerh[
![:img iPhone generation 1,70%, width](img/accessibility/iphone1.png)
]
]

.column[
.centerh[
![:img iPhone generation 3G,70%, width](img/accessibility/iphone3.png)
]
]

.column[
.centerh[
![:img iPhone generation 3Gs,60%, width](img/accessibility/iphone3gs.png)
]
]

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background-image: url(img/accessibility/iphone-now.png)

## Accessibility in the iPhone  Today

.left-column60[
- VoiceOver - screen reader 
- Speech recognition for control
- Zoom – screen magnifier
- Closed captions 
- AssistiveTouch 
- Switch Control (IOS7 and later) [head movement with built in camera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXF2ThtYXzM) or external switch
- More ever year
]

???

assistive touch also saves you from pressing the home button
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## Analyzing the (original) iPhone

- Is it ableist?
- Is it informed by disabled perspectives?
- Does it oversimplify disability/identity to one disability/presumed affluent white person/etc

Small group discussion; **Post on  [Ed](https://edstem.org/us/courses/90089/discussion/)**

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## Justice and Disability Leadership in Design

.left-column50[
[Crip Technoscience](https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29607)
- .quote[Disabled people are experts and designers of everyday life]
- .quote[We also harness technoscience for political action, refusing to comply with demands to cure, fix, or eliminate disability]
]

.right-column50[
[Design Justice](https://bookish.press/tac/ComputingAndSociety)
- .quote[led by marginalized communities [and aims] to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities]
- Originates outside of disability ([Design Justice Network](https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles))
- Can be used in concert with Disability justice.
]

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#  Disability Justice

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## What is Disability Justice
Concept developed by Queer, BIPOC disabled people

Deeply connected to anti-capitalist politics.
- You may not agree, but you should be able to explain the principals anyway. 
- We are not defining this, we are learning it.

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## DJ Principles (1/10)

1. INTERSECTIONALITY(*) "we are many things, and they all impact us."

[Sins Invalid](https://www.sinsinvalid.org/) disability based performance project defines [10 principles of disability justice](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bed3674f8370ad8c02efd9a/t/5f1f0783916d8a179c46126d/1595869064521/10_Principles_of_DJ-2ndEd.pdf) which are:

(*) Feminist theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw coined intersectionality in
1989 to describe the experiences of Black women, who experience both
racism and sexism.

???
“We do not live single issue lives” –Audre Lorde.

Ableism, coupled with white supremacy, supported by capitalism, underscored by heteropatriarchy, has rendered the vast majority of the world “invalid.”

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## Intersectionality in Design:

Ensure that the things we build address multiple disabled people, with varied identities, and multiply disabled people

E.g. describing people in images

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## DJ Principles (2/10)

1. INTERSECTIONALITY "we are many things, and they all impact us."
2. LEADERSHIP OF THOSE MOST IMPACTED helps us stay grounded by those we serve

???
“We are led by those who most know these systems.” –Aurora Levins Morales

lifting up, listening to, reading, following, and highlighting the perspectives of those who are most impacted by the systems we fight against."
by centering the

leadership of those most impacted, we keep ourselves grounded in real-world
problems and find creative strategies for resistance. "

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## Leadership of those most impacted

Disability led decisions. When we design for people with disabilities,
- People with disabilities are part of the design process (or lead it)
- The needs of those MOST impacted among that subset come FIRST, then the majority follows

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## DJ Principles (3/10)

1. INTERSECTIONALITY "we are many things, and they all impact us."
2. LEADERSHIP OF THOSE MOST IMPACTED helps us stay grounded by those we serve
3. ANTI-CAPITALIST POLITICS "we resist conforming to 'normative' levels
of productivity in a capitalist culture"

???
In an economy that sees land and humans as components of profit, we are anti-capitalist by the nature of having non-conforming body/minds.

Capitalism depends on wealth accumulation for some (the white ruling class), at the expense of others... Our worth is not dependent on what and how much we can produce.

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## Anti-Capitalist Politics in Design

When we create systems, we make them accessible even though it may cost time and money
- No segregation, even if it is cheaper to implement

Maybe antithetical to ALT text?

???
Consider things like disclosure and invisibility

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## DJ Principles (4/10)

4) CROSS-MOVEMENT SOLIDARITY "Through cross-movement solidarity, we create a united front."

???
disability justice lends itself to politics of alliance.

Align with racial justice, reproductive justice, queer and trans liberation, prison abolition, environmental justice, anti-police terror, Deaf activism, fat liberation, and more... challenging white disability communities around racism and challenging other movements to confront ableism.

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## Cross-Movement Solidarity in Design

Addressing accessibility isn't enough if we aren't inclusive of other identities

How does this differ from intersectionality?

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## DJ Principles (5/10)

4) CROSS-MOVEMENT SOLIDARITY "Through cross-movement solidarity, we create a united front."

5) RECOGNIZING WHOLENESS "Disabled people are whole people."

???
People have inherent worth outside of commodity relations and capitalist notions of productivity. Each person is full of history and life experience.

Each person is full of history and life experience. Each person has an internal
experience composed of our own thoughts, sensations, emotions, sexual fantasies,
perceptions, and quirks.

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## Recognizing Wholeness in Design

We should include accessibility in all the spaces that people interact with technology, because people with disabilities exist in all of the spaces -- as authors and consumers; programmers and users; and in every area of life

What addition to the how we approach image description  would fulfill this?

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## DJ Principles (6/10)

4) CROSS-MOVEMENT SOLIDARITY "Through cross-movement solidarity, we create a united front."

5) RECOGNIZING WHOLENESS "Disabled people are whole people."

6) SUSTAINABILITY "pace ourselves, individually and collectively"

???
We pace ourselves, individually and collectively, to be sustained long term. Our embodied experiences guide us toward ongoing justice and liberation.

to be sustained long-term, value the teachings of our bodies and experiences, and use them as a critical guide and reference point to help us move away from urgency and into a deep, slow, transformative, unstoppable wave of justice and liberation.

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## Sustainability in Design

We should work at a pace that includes everyone in the work, and not value the rush products to market over access

What addition to  our class structure would fulfill this?

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## DJ Principles (7/10)

4) CROSS-MOVEMENT SOLIDARITY "Through cross-movement solidarity, we create a united front."

5) RECOGNIZING WHOLENESS "Disabled people are whole people."

6) SUSTAINABILITY "pace ourselves, individually and collectively"

7) COMMITMENT TO CROSS-DISABILITY SOLIDARITY "isolation undermines collective liberation"

???
even and especially those who are most often left out of political conversations. Break down the isolation between people with physical
impairments, people who are sick or chronically ill, psych survivors and people
with mental health disabilities, neurodiverse people, people with intellectual or
developmental disabilities, Deaf people, Blind people, people with environmental
injuries and chemical sensitivities, and all others who experience ableism and
isolation that undermines our collective liberation.

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## Cross-disability Solidarity in Design

Your turn!

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## DJ Principles (8/10)

8) INTERDEPENDENCE "We work to meet each other's needs" rather than depending on state solutions

???
 the liberation of all living systems and the land as integral to the liberation of our own communities, as we all share one planet. We work to meet each other’s needs as we build toward liberation, knowing that state solutions inevitably extend into further control over lives.

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## DJ Principles (9/10)

8) INTERDEPENDENCE "We work to meet each other's needs" rather than depending on state solutions

9) COLLECTIVE ACCESS "We can share responsibility for our access needs ... balance autonomy while being in community"

???
AS brown, black and queer-bodied disabled people we bring flexibility and creative nuance that go beyond able-bodied/minded normativity, to be in community with each other.

... Access needs aren’t shameful — we all function differently depending on context and environment. Access needs can be articulated and met privately, through a collective, or in community, depending upon an individual’s needs, desires, and the capacity of the group. We can share responsibility for our access needs, we can ask that our needs be met without compromising our integrity, we can balance autonomy while being in community, we can be unafraid of our vulnerabilities, knowing our strengths are respected.

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# DJ Principles (10/10)

8) INTERDEPENDENCE "We work to meet each other's needs" rather than depending on state solutions

9) COLLECTIVE ACCESS "We can share responsibility for our access needs ... balance autonomy while being in community"

10) COLLECTIVE LIBERATION  No body or mind can be left behind – only moving together can we accomplish the revolution we require.

???
We move together as people with mixed abilities, multiracial, multi-gendered, mixed class, across the sexual spectrum, with a vision that leaves no bodymind behind.

Your turn!

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## **Disability Justice Competency**

Requires 3 or more principals be analyzed correctly
- Define each principal you are analyzing in your own words. 
- Write 1-2 paragraphs (~200-300 words) explaining how the service or technology described in the article you picked addresses, or fails to address, that principal.

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## Case study: One-way Masking

2022: [FastCompany Article](https://www.fastcompany.com/90790893/im-a-chronically-ill-student-and-one-way-masking-isnt-enough) by a chronically ill Berkeley student who was infected by a stranger who sat down next to them without a mask

.quote[I challenge people who are not at high risk for COVID-19 complications to think about what it must be like trying to attend university (or go into work every day) while also trying to avoid getting COVID-19.]

.quote[Why wouldn’t people wear a mask to protect “vulnerable” members of our community, who are statistically part of every college campus? Why is it always the disabled or chronically ill student or professor who has to ask people to wear masks? Why can’t people just show solidarity? I ask myself these questions daily.]

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## Case study: One-way Masking

- [Masks hide facial expressions & exacerbate racial bias](https://theconversation.com/face-masks-hide-our-facial-expressions-and-can-exacerbate-racial-bias-155250)
- Masks make lipreading harder
- Individual risk of severe COVID is [lower for vaccinated people with no risk factors](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-benefits.html##:~:text=COVID%2D19%20vaccination%20helps%20protect,associated%20with%20COVID%2D19%20infection.)
- Political [resistance](https://theconversation.com/mask-wearing-wasnt-disputed-in-previous-crises-so-why-is-it-so-hotly-contested-today-171536) and [beliefs](https://theconversation.com/face-masks-cut-disease-spread-in-the-lab-but-have-less-impact-in-the-community-we-need-to-know-why-147912)
- Masks protect the wearer
- Masks also protect people around you, if you are sick

Discuss masking from a disability justice perspective and **post on [Ed](https://edstem.org/us/courses/90089/discussion/)**.

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## Case Study: ThisAbles Campaign

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## More about ThisAbles

.quote[IKEA’s ThisAbles won the 2019 Grand Prix for Health and Wellness [22]. However, within the company’s marketing campaign, Eldar Yusupov, the disabled copywriter for McCann Tel Aviv who conceptualized and “fought for” the project was relegated to the role of user]

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## What DJ principles did it violate?

- Leadership of those most impacted: "user" is not "leader"

-  Anti-capitalist politics: IKEA supposedly released its models, but the website (thisables.com) is gone. I found [*one* item on Thingiverse](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4333991)

--
- Cross-movement solidarity: Not part of the campaign
- Recognizing wholeness: Jokes about assembly -> no!

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## Disability Dongle (1/2)

.quote[Disability Dongle: A well intended elegant, yet useless solution to a problem we never knew we had. Disability Dongles are most often conceived of and created in design schools and at IDEO.] [Liz Jackson](https://twitter.com/elizejackson/status/1110629818234818570)

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## Disability Dongle (2/2)

- Often speculative
- Sometimes "they enact normative or curative harm upon disabled users" 
- Emphasize quick fix over structural change

???
explain the jargon

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## Who is (Typically) Behind Dongles?

.quote[Thank you for your feedback is a signal that we have no control over how our knowledge will be used; by reframing disabled expertise and critique as “feedback,” this phrase, like IKEA’s ThisAbles campaign, relegates disabled people to the role of user and subordinates disabled knowledge to the (professional) designerly imagination. It’s a disingenuous phrase, in which “thank you” is uttered to remind us that it is actually us who should be grateful. [Disability Dongle](https://blog.castac.org/2022/04/disability-dongle/), Liz Jackson]

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## Award bait

- “Thank you for your feedback” and what it signals
- Whose idea and whose credit
- Hero complex (I can save you with this new technology)
- Does not emphasize Agency and Control
- Not Disability Led
- Typically doesn't involve disabled people early, if at all

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# Assignments

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## First Assignment: [AT Around Us](../assignments/finding-accessibility/) (Part 1)

Find one disability dongle

Analyze what's problematic
- Find at least two disability justice principals it violates
- Answer questions such as "Is it ableist"? Is it informed by disabled perspectives? Does it oversimplify disability/identity?

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## First Assignment: [AT Around Us](../assignments/finding-accessibility.html) (Part 2)

Find one access technology that you can try out

Find a description of it *by a disabled person who uses it* (first-person experience)

Expectations:
- Try not to pick the same things as your classmates
- Nothing too common (like glasses)

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## Handin: Accessible Documents Competency

- Your writeup (Microsoft word) or PowerPoint. Note: do not submit a PDF. We expect your submission to be a Word or Google Doc.
- A list of images and the ALT text you wrote for each of them
- Which best practices are demonstrated in this document or PowerPoint
- A screen shot showing the accessibility checker results for your document or PowerPoint

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## Handin: Disability Model Analysis Comp.

Define and explain two disability justice principles. For each, explain how the subject fails or succeeds to meet that?

Address the three additional points
- Is it ableist?
- Is it informed by disabled perspectives?
- Does it oversimplify disability/identity?

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## Handin: First Person Accounts Competency
A link to the first person account

A reflection answering the following questions
  - What first person account did you find and does it meet the requirements for a first person account described above
  - What are the barriers and opportunities the person described?
  - What technology did they describe using?
  - How might what you learned extend beyond this specific person, disability and/or technology?

A list of additional resources you used to answer these questions (first person accounts, research papers, etc). If you use Generative AI, you still need to check and cite relevant references.

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## Paired Activity: Is it a first person account?

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## First Person Account? (Ex 1)

???
- [No] AAC mealtime
  - The AAC user never addresses the audience
  - The  AAC user never comments on the experience of using it

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## First Person Account? (Ex 2)

???
- [No] Dynavox
  - It is highly scripted
  - It doesn't really review the device at hand
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## First Person Account? (Ex 3)

???
- Kit Autie [describes why they use AAC and  ableist reactions they get when using it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3YQ9F4SFAQ)
- Shows the variety of options available over specific strengths
- I learned that "*languaging*" is a multi-person activity in which people can co-create access (or create ableism around access)
- Costs have come way down!! (free with in-app purchases)

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## First Person Account? (Ex 4)

???
- [Borderline] Street crossing
  - City-produced video with first person account (see 2:10)
  - Limitations: Not universally available; Does not support DeafBlind 
  - Designed for people with visual impairments to cross the street

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## Results

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## What you hand in

- This is a group assignment
- You'll present in section
- You'll need to make your slides accessible 
- You'll answer questions about Competencies
  - Accessible Documents
  - Finding First Person Accounts
  - Disability Model Analysis

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# Summary and Next Class

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## You can approach accessibility many ways
- Ability-based design
- Universal design
- Disability Justice
  - 10 principles
  - Used in first assignment

Goal: Avoid disability dongles

---

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## First person accounts
- Widely available (esp. Youtube; TikTok; Instagram)
- Guide design in this class

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## Next class
- Quick intro to presenting accessibility & Accessible documents
- Studio work on making slides accessible