Explaining facets of mobile web accessibility to participants
“Case Studies in Web Accessibility”
QuasiCon
March 2017
QuasiCon is an annual conference held in Ann Arbor, MI to address pressing issues in Information Science. Presentations, workshops, and a poster session are delivered by students and professionals from across Michigan and neighboring states.
Employing best practices in web accessibility is vital to ensure that all users can access content online. To help front end web developers jump into this important work, my colleague and I led a hands on workshop outlining the value and practice of web accessibility. After providing an overview of the topic and examples of web accessibility done well and not-so-well, we asked the participants to form groups and evaluate websites together. We assigned each group one website and provided them with documentation to consult as well as tools to use (Color Contrast Analyzer plugin for Chrome, for example). After each team evaluated a website, we regrouped and I facilitated a wrap up discussion.
Presenting at World Information Architecture Day – Ann Arbor
“From I-75 to the Web: Investigating the Highways of Detroit’s Digital Services”
World Information Architecture Day – Ann Arbor
February 2017
World Information Architecture Day is an international celebration of Information Architecture with localized events. Presentations are selected by a jury.
During this talk, I proposed that there is a deep and important connection between the physical and digital infrastructure of the City of Detroit. I gave the example of streetlights. The City has installed 65,000 LED streetlights across Detroit, lighting up neighborhoods and making the nights safer. Similarly, there is opportunity for further transparency in the digital landscape. Detroiters rely on transparent systems for navigating their streets and paying their water bills and property taxes. Functional, reliable, and transparent digital services are vital for residents of Detroit, just like safe streets.
Presenting Rat Chat to stakeholders in Ferndale, MI
“Rat Chat”
Citizen Interaction Design – Civic Tech Exposition
December 2016
Watch the video of my pitch for Rat Chat
The City of Ferndale, MI partnered with students at the University of Michigan to solve intractable problems facing their city. Rat Chat was one of the products that emerged from this partnership.
When the City of Ferndale didn’t know how to tackle their rat population, they asked my team for help. Specifically, the staff didn’t know how to communicate with the residents about the rats, and residents didn’t know how to get in touch with the City. After robust user testing, our team designed, developed, tested and implemented an SMS bot for residents and city staff to communicate about rats. I presented the bot to citizens and city staff in Ferndale in December, when we first launched the product. See more about the process and product of Rat Chat here.