Accessibility & Access

Reid Davenport's breakout film that explores the lack of accessibility in Europe. It is an award-winning documentary that has been shown coast-to-coast and internationally. The film has been featured in the Washington Post, NPR and USA Today. SNHU Login Required.

What would life be like without language? For too many deaf people raised in rural outposts, access to a sign-language community is denied and they are condemned to a life without words. SNHU Login Required.

How can technology help improve our quality of life? How can we navigate the world without using the sense of vision? Inventor and IBM Fellow Chieko Asakawa, who's been blind since the age of fourteen, is working on answering these questions. In a charming demo, she shows off some new technology that's helping blind people explore the world ever more independently ... because, she suggests, when we design for greater accessibility, everyone benefits.

Does a school for the deaf need to be quiet? Architect Marcus Adrian explains how the answer put him on the road to identifying a key element of designing for accessibility -- understanding the spectrum of human ability and celebrating what people do well instead of focusing on what they can't.

How do you build a wheelchair ready to blaze through mud and sand, all for under $200? MIT engineer Amos Winter guides us through the mechanics of an all-terrain wheelchair that's cheap and easy to build -- for true accessibility -- and gives us some lessons he learned along the road.

Sinéad Burke is acutely aware of details that are practically invisible to many of us. At 105 centimeters (or 3' 5") tall, the designed world -- from the height of a lock to the range of available shoe sizes -- often inhibits her ability to do things for herself. Here she tells us what it's like to navigate the world as a little person and asks: "Who are we not designing for?"