as5: Final Project

Last revised: April 27, 2021

Assigned:

• May 5, 2021

Due:

• Discussion post on canvas with ideas before class on May 10, 2021
• Email staff about final teams May 12, 2021
• Submit slides on Canvas and present your project in class May 17, 2021
• Submit slides on Canvas and present progress in class May 24, 2021
• Final presentations and deliverables due June 9, 2021

The goal of your final project is to explore an accessibility issue in more depth than you’ve been able to do in our projects so far. In choosing this project, you may want to draw from personal expertise, literature, or user data should you have access to it. There is requirement for this project and three things that are strongly encouraged. One note: given the number of weeks available, be careful not to overcommit (e.g. creating a significant novel device and a lengthy study!)

Requirement You should take a “disability studies” perspective meaning you should be able to make a case for how your project either directly, or indirectly, improves agency and control that people with disabilities have over their technology/lives You should think critically about whether and how your project empowers and gives agency to people with disabilities, as well as the extent to which it expects/engages the larger structural issues around the problem you’re trying to solve. If you don’t have personal experience justifying the choice of problem, it is important to find studies that involved people with disabilities that help justify the sense of your proposed work. 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), but equally important not to come in with a ‘hero complex’ and simply believe you know what people need.

• Encouraged You should inform your project from first person accounts if at all possible.
  • If you cannot find first person commentary on the topic, please reach out to the course staff for help. We may tell you not to worry about it, or point you at resources
  • This should not unduly burden the disability comumnity. 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. Since we haven’t really taught that aspect of accessibility in this class, we want you to prioritize skills you learned here!
• Encouraged You should work in a group. If you wish to work alone, please ask the course staff for approval.
• Encouraged Your project should include an implementation component. If it does not, please check with the course staff for approval.

Your final project will have four phases:

Idea pitch and team formation

By May 10, 2021, you will make a discussion post with an idea of your choosing, or express interest on one of the ideas posted by the staff or by other students on Canvas before class. Every student needs to make a discussion post. We will form breakout groups in class on May 10 and help you form teams. You are encouraged to continue conversations on Canvas or in a platform of your choosing, but final team formation must be completed by May 12, 2021 (see below).

Finalizing team formation

By May 12, 2021, please email the course staff following up on any conversation and with a final list of team members. Please also join and name a team/group in Canvas. This will give you access to a discussion board and turn in resources for group components of the project. In addition, pleaseemail the course staff when your team is finalized. We do not anticipate any changes in teams at this point, but we can work with you on a case-by-case basis if there is a need to change teams. Please indicate this in your email to us.

Proposal

By May 17, 2021, Please preopare a slide deck to present in class. Here is an outline of things we expect in the slides:

1. Describe your project.
   • What first person data informed it
   • What will you do? How does it support agency and control for people with disabilities
   • What do you think the importance is of this problem to the disability community.
2. Report on the status of your team formation. Who are your team members? If you are working by yourself on the project, please indicate this in your proposal. You should have reached out to us and received approval to work solo by this point.

Milestone one presentation

On May 23, 2021, you will submit a slide deck with six slides that describe your progress with the project. The slides should contain:

• Promise: How the world will be better based on your project?
• Obstacle: Why we don’t have this already?
• Solution: How you will achieve the promise? This will most likely be primarily technical.
• Related work: It should also include a related work section with at least 3 references showing some evidence for the importance of this problem, and any first person evidence you found. Related work should as much as possible be informed by perspectives or your end users, people with disabilities.
• Timeline: Finally, it should include a timeline showing that this is feasible.

Development: Please drop by office hours if you need guidance on any aspect of your project. The course staff can work with you on a case-by-case basis if you are unable to attend office hours and would like to meet at a different time.

Final project deliverables

On June 9, 2021, you will turn-in the final set of deliverables. These are:

• a public-facing web page containing a write-up of your project.
• a 2-3 minute video about your project.
• a slide deck presenting your work.
• a presentation of this slide deck in the scheduled final exam time for your class (9 June, 2021 6:30-8:20PM).

Slides

You will submit, and present slides in-class. You will follow a similar format as your milestone 1 presentations, but will focus more on your solutions. Presentation time will be decided based on group formation and number of projects. Please ensure that your submitted slides are accessible and that you are making best-effort to present accessibly while staying on-time.

Video

You should create a brief, accessible, two-three minute captioned and audio-described video motivating your project and describing your solution.

Webpage

You will make an accessible, public-facing webpage. There are several simple options for you to host a public-facing page. You can use github pages to host a one-page page (here is a link to documentation). UW CSE also has resources to host pages; here is a related FAQ.

Here is an example tool from Microsoft that will help you check for accessibility of your page. Here is an article talking about ways to do this using Chrome’s DevTools.

We recognize that it may not be possible to produce a page with zero accessibility bugs if you are using built-in frameworks; while that should be your goals when designing pages, we expect you to make your best effort and minimize accessibility bugs on your page for this submission. You should follow the writing guidelines put out by SIGACCESS for writing about disability Your page should contain the following:

• Embedd your video
• Text describing:
  • Introduction– 1-3 paragraphs: Present the promise/ obstacle/ solution for your project— What is the problem you are solving and why is it important to solve it?
  • Related Work– 1-3 paragraphs: Talk about relevant work that closely connects with your project.
  • Methodology– about 3 paragraphs: What did you do in your project- what did you design or implement? What role did people with disabilities play in this, if any
  • Disability Studies Perspective– 1 paragraph: How did a disability studies perspective inform your project?
  • Learnings and future work – 1-2 paragraphs: Describe what you learned and how this can be extended/ built on in the future.