Reimagining Access: Inclusive Technology Design for Archives and Special Collections

  • Sustainable Development
Art and design students at a whiteboard, ideating and sketching concepts .
ArtCenter students flesh out concepts during a recent accessibility design workshop led by Assistant Professor Josh Halstead, a disability advocate who participated in the Reimagining Access symposium and class. Photo by Steven Butler.

Partners:

Institute of Museum and Library Services
Society of American Archivists Accessibility and Disability Section
The Braille Institute
MSU Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting

Host department:

Interaction Design

DM department:

Jennifer May, Executive Director
Leigh Hoffman, Faculty Director
Kimberly Velazco, Program Manager
Garret Scullin, Senior Coordinator
Dominique Rivero, Designmatters Intern

Faculty:

Project Directors:

Robert Dirig , Director Archives & Special Collections
Maggie Hendrie , Professor, Chair, Media Design Practices and Interaction Design


Faculties:

Elise Co , Interaction Design
Todd Masilko , Interaction Design
Joshua Halstead , DesignMatters and Interaction Design

Expert advisors:

ArtCenter Archives and Special Collections:

Robert Dirig , Director Archives & Special Collections
Maggie Hendrie Professor, Chair, Media Design Practices and Interaction Design
Mario Ascencio , Managing Director and College Librarian
Lynn Dubinsky , Regional Director, Los Angeles Braille Institute of America
Michelle Ganz ,Archivist at History Factory
Cathy Folgate ,Assistant Archivist
Jeffrey Swada , Director of the Undergraduate Food Science Program and the liaison to the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University
Sarah Swierenga , Director of the Usability/Accessibility Research Consulting (UARC) Group
Lydia Tang , Archivist of the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections at Michigan State University
Sara White , Disability rights activist and archivist

Students:

Spring 2021:

Athena K. Aquino (Graphic Design)
Elizabeth Costa (Interaction Design)
Charlene Joy Dela Cruz (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Rhema Gabriela (Advertising)
Yuxuan (Sara) Hua (Product Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Xun Liu (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Ziwei Lu (Product Design)
John Ma (Interaction Design)
Anthony Palileo (Interaction Design)
Joey Serricchio (Fine Art)
Ruiying Xu (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)


Summer 2021:

Zhean (Steven) Chen (Product Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Charlene Joy Dela Cruz (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Tung Him (Tobey) Karpenko (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Cynthia Lee (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Jeung Soo Lee (Interaction Design)
Mehar Nangia (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Huangchen Qi (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Yuning Tang (Product Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)
Jiaying Wang (Interaction Design with Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation)

Special thanks:

Sean Donahue
Sara Hendren, Artist, design researcher, writer and professor at Olin College of Engineering
Crystal Lee, PhD candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jasmine Clark, Digital scholarship librarian, Temple University
Elizabeth Guffey, Professor of Art and Design History and head of the MA Program in Art History at the State University of New York, Purchase College
Ani Boyadjian, Principal Librarian, Research & Special Collections
Jennifer Ismirel, Senior User Experience Researcher, UARC
Sarah Swiererga, Director of the Usability/Accessibility Research Consulting (UARC) Group


Symposium Sketchnotes:

Amanda Oesef
Audrey Murty


Creative Prompts:

Joshua Halstead
Maggie Hendrie
Robert Dirig
Rhema Gabriela
Charlene Joy Dela Cruz
Ju Xie

Teaching assistants:

Evan Stalker (Graduate Media Design Practices, Spring 2021)
Elizabeth Costa (Designmatters Fellowship, Summer 2021)