Final Project Proposal

Last revised date: 9/17/25

Overview

Propose a project to make the world slightly more accessible in a way that reflects a deep understanding of the needs and goals of disabled people. The goal of your project is to build an accessibility technology or make an existing technology more accessible.

Competencies

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

Optionally, you may want to turn in these competences as well:

Final Project Examples From Past Courses
Assignment Requirements
Assessment & Handin Process
1. Turn in your writeup

Final Project Examples From Past Courses

Some examples of what people have done in the past include:

Qbit: An Accessible Tangible User Interface for Window Management and Multitasking: Screen reader users who are blind use built-in mechanisms (e.g. alt+tab) to switch between windows. This requires them to remember the ordering of windows in these tab switchers and linearizes the switching process. Sighted computer users, on the other hand, use a variety of strategies like positioning windows and tabs within and across screens. We address this gap through an exploratory Tangible User Interface (TUI) – a physical cube – and report results from an exploratory pilot with one participant. Our preliminary findings show that rotating the cube is an intuitive way to navigate between windows and tabs, the cube’s verbal feedback is helpful while switching windows, and user can distinguish different sides easily due to the textures on the cube.
Knitting4All: Fabricating Solutions to Knitting Accessibility Problems: We performed one (soon to be more) case study with a participant, pseudonym Magnolia, with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which causes her tremors, pain in her hands, loss of movement in her right (dominant) hand, double vision, and short term memory loss. Using a combination of semi structured interviews and contextual inquiry, we met with our participant to get a sense of how they knit today, the issues they face, and their goals for what they would like to knit. Following, we utilized participatory design, dubbing our participant as the expert, and worked closely with the participant to create prototypes via 3D printing and software programming to help her knit more complex patterns with more comfort (now published as part of “Stitching Together the Experiences of Disabled Knitters”)
[Dis]placed: navigating third places and chronic illness: People experiencing chronic illness often are excluded from third places for relaxing and socializing outside of the workplace and home. Designs of public places often neglect important characteristics like: frequent seating, temperature control, and accessible restrooms. However, public places also provide healing elements like relaxation, socialization, and views of nature. Because of the lack of proper design of third places, people with chronic illness find it challenging to find third places that fit their accessible and therapeutic needs and preferences. This project explored whether an information service could be helpful for people navigating the experience of place and chronic illness, by showing which places have certain qualities (now published as part of “Navigating Illness, Finding Place: Enhancing the Experience of Place for People Living with Chronic Illness”

Assignment Requirements

To complete this assignment, you will need to do the following

0. Brainstorm an Idea

In choosing this project, you may want to draw from personal expertise, literature, or user data should you have access to it. Your idea should have the following components.

Implementation component: This project should require the creation of novel technology or resources involving programming.
Validation component: Your project also must include a validation component (some way of measuring how well it works). This typically involves developing a set of examples and metrics for success, and assessing how well the technology performs on them.

Note on disability involvement in this project It is not feasible to do a full iterative design cycle in this project (and not necessarily an ethical use of the time of people with disabilities). However if you want to include data from interviewing, or testing with, people with disabilities, that is permissible. That said, your project should not unduly burden the disability community. Some projects may allow for direct collaboration with or feedback from people with disabilities, others may not. Please reach out to us for guidance on this if you intend to work with disabled participants.

1. Develop an Argument for The Idea

Your idea should be

Promising It should offer novel research insights or technology that will help to advance the needs of people with disabilities
Informed by a First Person Account
Embody Positive Disability Principles, meaning it holds up under a Disability Model Analysis, is not ableist, and furthers disabled agency and control.
Feasible in the time available during the quarter.

2. Write About Your Proposal

Your write up should include the following information

Promise:
- What new knowledge or capabilities does this project enable?
- Why is this challenging today? What is already known about this, and what is not known? You should discuss related literature and/or products in answering this question.
What First Person Account are you drawing from? You must have one of the following
- An existing ongoing project involving interviews or other engagements with people with disabilities that you can refer to
- Find an existing interview paper or ethnography/auto-ethnography on the topic
- Find an online content creator who provides a first person account of the need for this project
Feasible in the time available during the quarter.
- What do you plan to accomplish by each of the two intermediate project milestones (week 7 and 10), and by the end of the quarter (week 12)?
- What will you omit in order to make the project feasible? In other words, how will you scope this project to fit within the quarter? Given the number of weeks available (7), be careful not to over commit.

Assessment & Handin Process

Turn in your writeup

Disability Model Analysis

Specify the model you are using to analyze

Name one principal you drew from it. How does the subject fail or succeed to meet that?
Name one principal you drew from it. How does the subject fail or succeed to meet that?
Name one principal you drew from it. How does the subject fail or succeed to meet that?

Address the three additional points

Is it ableist?
Is it informed by disabled perspectives or is it a disability dongle?
Does it oversimplify?

Finding First Person Accounts

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.

Optional Information to hand in

In addition, you may choose to hand in the following optional information. Please ask the instructors if you're unsure what additional work or materials might be needed to complete these.

Accessible Documents

Your writeup (Microsoft word) or PowerPoint
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

Plain Language

Original text (unsimplified)
Simplified text
A list of the guidelines you wish to be assessed on, and an example of something you changed to meet each of them. You need at least five to be assessed as "excellent"