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Students create user interface solutions for
disabled women
By Fernando Quintero
An allergy sensor that detects potentially harmful ingredients,
such as peanuts or dairy. A jacket with self-adjusting temperature
control. A sports-utility wheelchair (SUW), that could drive over
sandy beaches or rough mountain terrain. Personal flying machines.
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| Faculty member Jennifer
Mankoff, who teaches a course in assistive technology, joined
the workshop to meet with students and community members with
disabilities. Peg Skorpinski photo |
For their first assignment of the new semester, students in User
Interface Design, Prototyping, and Evaluation, a computer science
course taught by faculty member James Landay, spent a rainy Saturday
afternoon in January with a dozen or more women with disabilities,
letting their imaginations run wild.
The "innovation workshop" at Soda Hall brought together
students, faculty, staff, and members of the disabled community.
Their goal: to generate ideas for the Institute for Women in Technology's
Virtual Development Center, an industry-supported partnership
of universities and communities aimed at increasing women's
participation in the design and development of technology.
Berkeley became a center site this past fall and Landay's
class, Computer Science 160, is the campus's first course
collaboration with the center. Student projects focus on designing
appropriate computer technology for women with disabilities.
The first half of the workshop aimed to open up lines of communication
among participants. The second consisted of breakout sessions,
in groups of six, designed to generate and refine ideas for student
projects, based on the input of women with disabilities.
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| James Landay takes
notes at the January workshop, which was held to generate
ideas for the Virtual Development Center, an industry-supported
partnership of universities and communities aimed at increasing
women's participation in technology. Peg Skorpinski
photo |
More than one student said the all-day workshop was an opportunity
to discuss technology outside a small circle of "techno geeks."
For the women, it was a chance to be heard.
"A lot of people don't take the time to understand or
listen. People don't see us as individuals," Priscilla
Moyers, a deaf specialist in sign language communication, said
through an interpreter. "I came here. My ideas were heard,
and I appreciate that very much."
Other ideas -- some more realistic than others -- came up at the
session: PDAs, such as Palm Pilots, with voice recognition; cookware
with a "food-doneness" indicator; hands-free ATM machines;
a one-handed jar opener; a hand-held device that would translate
audio to text for the hearing-impaired; and a machine that makes
the bed.
In fact, technology developed for the disabled can help everyone,
says Landay. "Engineering is all about how to solve design
problems, given constraints."
The women participants had a variety of disabilities, says Maureen
Fitzgerald, director of the local nonprofit group Computer Technologies
Program, who recruited the community participants. "There
are women here who are blind, deaf, have mobility impairment,
and cognitive disabilities," she says. "These women
have helped students have an expanded sense of what it's
like to have disabilities. I think it's blowing their minds."
Landay's 48 students were required to write, by the following
Monday, a two-page essay on one of the project ideas. Says class
member Jenny Nguyen, "I see my normal routine in a whole
new perspective. It's really changed the way I think about
things."
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