Title
ATHack: Co-Design and Education in Assistive Technology Development
Abstract
ATHack, an annual assistive technologies hackathon at MIT, is unique in that community members living with disabilities (co-designers) propose projects and work with hackers to create prototypes over a two-week period. Since 2014, over 75 co-designers and 400 students have participated in ATHack. We present an overview of the program goals and implementation and share our reflections on the strengths and challenges surrounding the event as organizers, participants, and co-designers. Our reflections include that open communication between co-designers and participants is crucial, and that working on well-scoped, feasible projects is motivating for participants. From a survey (n=48) of ATHack participants from 2014-2019, 89% of respondents would recommend the event and 75% reported that they learned about disability and user-centered design. Our reflections suggest that the collaborative hackathon model can engage students spark innovations in accessible interfaces. We hope this report will inspire and guide others in implementing similar educational and design initiatives.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1145/3334480.3383096
CHI '20: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Honolulu HI USA April, 2020
Keywords
DocType
ISBN
Assistive technology, accessibility education, co-design, education, design methodology
Conference
978-1-4503-6819-3
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
7