(Week: 2) Project Research (Group)

Last revised date: 5/9/2026

Overview

Prepare for working on your project by researching first-person accounts to support inclusive, person-centered design

Required Competencies

When you turn in this homework, also turn in these competencies

Assignment Details

Proposal: Based on first person account

Do some background research on a topic you wish to propose for the class. Find first person accounts by a person with a disability that is not an advertisement relevant to your project. For example, here is a personal perspective on audio crosswalks and here is an interview with two black AAC users about their experiences using AAC technology (start at 00:16:00)

Try searching for “howto” or try searching first for vloggers or on tiktok for people who have a relevant disability and concern. Also ask for help on our class discussion site if you are having trouble. If you cannot find a video, you can look for a written account, such as a blog or review. In this case, it still needs to be written by a person with a disability.

Example

Here is a personal perspective on audio crosswalks and here is an interview with two black AAC users about their experiences using AAC technology (start at 00:16:00)

Summary of what we see here:

  • Daniel describes how he uses audio books. Audio Books are books that are read by a (typically human) narrator. You can listen to them at various speeds. He shows how to use a reader. They are free to people with print disabilities, and can be sped up and quick to consume. This is not a scripted teaching video or advertisement.
  • He does not talk much about how it falls short but mentions it is free. Note, if it stopped here, this first person account would receive a “competent” but not “excellent” grade because of its lack of commentary on pros and cons and relative lack of detail. One weakness I worry about is that it could be difficult to search them, or share a particular passage with someone else, or take notes on a passage and find it again. I couldn’t find a lot of information about this, and I think it is somewhat disability specific. For example, here is a first person account by a sighted person who uses audio books about how he takes notes on them. Clearly that is very different than what a blind person would do. This student has clearly done a lot of research, and found some evidence to address the weakness they mention. However, this is still only competent because they don’t have a first person account of the potential weakness
  • Audio books are used by people who are blind or low vision, as well as people who are dyslexic or cannot look at a screen without experiencing chronic illness symptoms such as nausea or cannot turn a page easily due to a motor impairment, and described on bookshare.org [2], a website that provides free audio and digital books to students with IEP plans, as well as non-disabled readers [3].
  1. Audiobooks for the Blind, Linc Inc.
  2. Bookshare.org. Supported by U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (Award Number H327D220002).
  3. Benefits of Audiobooks for All Readers Denise Johnson, Ed Tech and Digital Media.

Handin

Your group will create two slides describing the first person account you found to inform your project. You will also turn in the requirements for the associated competency.

Team Contribution & AI use Statement

We would like you to submit a contribution statement and AI use along with each group submission (for all graded team assignments!). Include this contribution statement as an additional part of your submission, along with the names of your group members. Please note that we will not grade submissions where this statement is missing.

An example contribution statement is:

  • Name 1: 40%, researched the background of the problem, outlined the content of the document, wrote the first version of one paragraph, also selected the images to be included
  • Name 2: 15%, conducted 3 interviews and took notes
  • Name 3: 20%, wrote the first version of the background section, made sure the final version got submitted
  • Name 4: 25%, conducted 3 interviews (with Name 2) organized the group meeting, put together the first draft of the AEIOU sheet.

Please know that we do not expect everyone to contribute equally to each assignment, but you should try to work as a team and support each other. You should also discuss and agree among each other what each of you contributed and how much this contributed to the overall assignments. We know these percentages are subjective and messy, so don’t overthink them (we won’t).

Competencies

You will also turn in the individual requirements for this competency

Inclusive Person Centered Design (rubric)

  • A link to the first person account(s)
  • A reflection answering the following questions
    • What first person account(s) did you find and does it meet the requirements for a first person account described above
    • How do their intersecting identities (e.g., race, gender, socioeconomic status) shape their experiences of disability? Are there any groups or identities missing from the accounts you found, and what impact might that have on your understanding of the problem?
    • How can your project goals address barriers that arise from multiple intersecting systems of oppression (e.g., racism, ableism, sexism)?
    • What insights or lessons did you learn from them, and how would you define your project goals based on them?
    • How would you define success for this project, and how will you determine if it has positively impacted your target users? What measures will you take to avoid reinforcing existing biases or excluding certain identities?

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