TCAT‘s academic mission
is to engage undergraduate design and engineering students in participatory design and inclusive design practices. The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology engages University of Washington students, faculty, and a community of practice in the creation of a sustainable social enterprise for the development, deployment and support of access technologies.
Community in the classroom
Our undergraduate courses engage community Needs Experts. We are currently looking for 3 Needs Experts for the 2019-2020 Accessibility Capstone. Please email uwtcat (at) uw (dot) edu for more information.
CSE 490D: Designing Technology for Resource-Constrained Environments (Winter)
CSE 482A: Accessibility Capstone (Spring)
The Accessibility Capstone at the Paul G. Allen school focuses on the use of participatory design methods to address the needs of highly diverse populations. Students face the unique challenge of creating novel, practical technology solutions to address the needs of community members with disabilities who are the course Needs Experts. Needs Experts provide essential knowledge of the problem domain space and co-design with the groups throughout the 10-week project cycle. The course is designed to provide student teams the theory, structure and support allowing teams to work effectively within the community, while learning fundamental principles of disability theory, participatory design and iterative engineering. A subset of the projects are sustained for real world use by the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology. See the Accessibility Capstone Video.