On April 10th, over 60 participants gathered at the fourth Centennial Innovates Inclusive Excellence Breakfast Series event, "Making technology more accessible through co-design". Spearheaded by Dr. Daniel Huizenga, Manager, Social Innovation Research in collaboration with Surrey Place and Community Living Toronto, the event facilitated an engaging, insightful conversation with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), software developers, and researchers.
Dr. Daniel Huizenga opened the event by setting up the context for the conversation: our technological environments are designed to exclude individuals with exceptionalities and different abilities, and only by identifying such barriers can we overcome them together. He introduced the force behind this event, a recently funded 3-year project titled “Using Artificial Intelligence to Develop Accessible Software for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities”. This project is a collaboration with our Centennial College Social Innovation Research Centre (SIRC), Surrey Place and Community Living Toronto, focused on using artificial intelligence to improve the human computer interaction (HCI) for individuals with IDD.
The first presenter was Johanna Niles, faculty member of the Developmental Services Worker Program and Principal Investigator of the “Using Artificial Intelligence to Develop Accessible Software for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities” project. Her extensive experience working in the developmental services sector is invaluable to this project, where she brings the core frameworks and concepts such as Valued Social Roles and the Social Model of Disability. With the switch to more virtual engagements since the pandemic, the digital gap for individuals with IDD has not only been greatly highlighted, but also greatly increased - one of the biggest catalysts for the project. She gave some examples of technological barriers in what would otherwise be simple actions such as accessing Instagram, ordering food, accessing finances online, and turning a camera on within Zoom. Professor Niles also introduced co-design workshops as a foundational core to the project’s design, empowering individuals with IDD to make their voices heard, and bring their lived experience to the table and to the research process. These co-design workshops will bring individuals with IDD, caregivers, support staff, researchers, and software developers together – something rarely done in a software development process. Creating such a learning and collaboration opportunity will bring new voices and raise new considerations to improve technological accessibility.
Next, we heard from Amanda Blower, a Lived Experience Advisor and self-advocate for adults with developmental disabilities. She shared a bit about herself, her hobbies, her favourite things, and how she loves her job because it allows her to empower other people with IDD. She also shared about the challenges that people with IDD navigate in their career journey, as many places don’t want to hire individuals with IDD, making it hard for them to find decent and meaningful work. She shared how individuals with IDD want to work and are capable of working - and how she is living proof of that. She shared about her role at Surrey Place where she helps make programs and materials better for people with disabilities, and how she is a valued member of the team. She provides feedback on projects, helps with research, promotes accessibility, participates in co-design work, and presents about disability issues as well as shares them on social media. Amanda then shared a video she worked on with Surry Place about her experience getting a COVID-19 vaccine. Lastly, she shared her work with Surrey Place’s research team, giving them feedback on how to develop accessible technology such as including options for bigger font size, more notice for website updates and the option to use the old one, having photos with instructions, and more. She ended her presentation with a clear message, that individuals with IDD can do the work, their voices matter, and all they need is the right support, patience, belief, understanding, and the care to teach them in plain language.
We then heard from Nelson, a Community Living Toronto (CLTO) Influencer and Tracy O’Regan, CLTO’s Community Inclusion and Advocacy Supervisor. Nelson shared that the CLTO Influencers are a group of self-advocates established during the pandemic who have a global reach, creating a network of self-advocates. In addition to meeting with government officials, doing presentations, and attending conferences, the CLTO influencers have also started weekly livestreams where they talk about different topics they’re passionate about. Nelson shared his experience with technology, including a speech-to-text program he uses to write emails and other communications. Nelson also brought up the importance of developing software that is responsive to the particular and unique needs and abilities of every user, because everyone is different.
The last segment of the event was an engaging panel discussion with Johanna Niles, Amanda Blower, Tenzin Jinpa, Software Research & Development Lead at the Wearable, Interactive and Mobile Technology Access Centre in Health (WIMTACH), a co-applicant of the project and an expert in artificial intelligence, as well as Ram Puvanesasingham, an expert in co-development and technology and Founder and CEO of Gepeto Interactive, a Canadian social enterprise that builds play-based tools that support cognitive development in kids of all abilities. Facilitate by Daniel Huizenga, the panel provided a variety of insights on the applied research project, as well as discussed important topics such as how technology can contribute to accessibility in education, the benefits of co-design, and how AI is used in this project to validate software designs, for example in quantifying the confidence level of individuals with IDD who use the software, and in customizing the user experience to be personalized to each user’s needs.
Jonathan Hack, Dean, Centennial Innovates, closed the session and invited the audience to engage in future Centennial Innovates events, including the Centennial Innovates 2024 Symposium on May 15th. Thank you to everyone who attended this session – we hope you gained new perspectives and strategies to increase the inclusivity of your research, software, product, and/or service!