Richard Ladner

Richard E. Ladner is a Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. He is Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Linguistics. He received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971. He is Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded AccessComputing Alliance which has the goal of increasing the participation and success of students with disabilities in computing fields. He served on the NSF Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) from 2006 to 2012. He serves on the Editorial Board of the ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing and served as Program Chair for the 15th Annual ACM SIGACCESS International Conference on Computers and Accessibility. He is a recipient of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) and the 2008 Computing Research Association’s A. Nico Habermann Award. His research is in the area of access technology for people with disabilities. He directs the NSF-funded MobileAccessibility project which is exploring how smartphones and other mobile devices can serve as accessibility tools for people who are blind, deaf-blind, or have low-vision.

A brief introduction to the AccessComputing Alliance will be given. A survey of approaches of approaches to to the design of technology for people who are blind or have low vision will be given. Approaches include universal design, user centered design, participatory design, ability based design, and finally, design for user empowerment. A key feature of the latter is the advanced education of blind scientists and engineers to help create the next generation of technology that will benefit them and others like them.