FCC's Speaker Series Will Feature Clayton Lewis on Inclusive Design Online
The FCC’s Accessibility and Innovation Initiative Speaker Series will feature USACM member and accessibility expert Clayton Lewis on “The Future of Inclusive Design Online” on Tuesday, July 16, at 10 am EDT. The event is free and open to the public. A live webcast will be available.
Event Summary
The evolution of technology is creating challenges to traditional thinking about making information and services available to people with differing functional needs and preferences, and creating opportunities to provide superior access. This talk will survey some of the developments, such as the shift from focus on access to presentations of content to access to content itself; the replacement of mass production by customized, individualized creation; non visual access for traditionally “visual” activities like games, interactive simulations, and visual programming; the need for tools usably by end users to craft their own information environment; the prospect that technology can automatically create new and different presentations of information and services; and the policy changes that may be needed to address these opportunities.
Clayton Lewis is a Professor of Computer Science and Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he has been based since 1984. He is a pioneer in the science of usability. He was manager of the Human Factors Group at the IBM Watson Research Center in the early 1980s where he led and inspired some of the first HCI projects on iterative, user centered design. He has had a strong influence on HCI with regard to designing for people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities. He has made designers and developers of accessible technologies aware of these groups, where previously they had been left out. Major projects in which he has participated include Fluid, an international family of projects on accessible web technology, the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure initiative (GPII), and the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies (RERC-ACT). His work has been recognized in many ways, including invitations to contribute to deliberations on technology and policy in many national and international venues.
He has twice served as Technical Program Chair or Co-chair for the ACM CHI Conferences on Human Factors in Computing Systems, the leading international conference in that field. He was elected to the ACM CHI Academy in 2009, recognizing his contributions to the field of human-computer interaction. In 2011, he was further recognized by the ACM CHI Social Impact Award, for his work on technology for people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities as Scientist in Residence at the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities.
He was named University of Colorado President’s Teaching Scholar, a life title signifying the University’s highest award for teaching, and served as Computer Science department chair from 1999 to 2003. He earned an A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University, an M.S. from MIT for interdisciplinary study in mathematics and linguistics, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in experimental psychology.
He is currently on leave from the university, working as a consultant to the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation, part of the U.S. Department of Education, helping to develop an initiative on cloud computing for people with disabilities.
Clayton Lewis: The Future of Inclusive Design Online
FCC’s Accessibility & Innovation Initiative Speaker Series
July 16, 2013, 10 a.m. – noon EDT
FCC Commission Meeting Room
445 12th Street, S.W., Room TW-C305
Washington, D.C. 20554
Live webcast: http://www.fcc.gov/live
Twitter: @USACM @FCC #Accessibility #a11y