Accessible Technology and Design Impacts All Learners – VSF Technology and the Power of Innovation for Access (EP.23)
With Randal Walker, M.D.
“When the wall of exclusion came down, everybody benefited” – Angela Glover Blackwell
Have you heard of the “curb-cut effect”? It is a phenomenon when a technology or innovation comes along meant to benefit one situation or demographic and ends up being used in unplanned ways by just about everyone who has access. Many technologies we rely on today have come about from assistive devices that were originally designed as accommodations for disabilities, e.g. keyboards and closed captions. When we design learning and technology with inclusion and access in mind, the outcomes is often that almost everyone benefits. Pioneering and award winning physician with Mayo Clinic Division of Infectious Disease & Assistant Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Randal Walker, M.D. joins Stacy Craft to share his story and journey innovating new assistive technologies for low vision readers. His creation, Visual Syntactic Text Formatting, has become an illuminating case study in the unexpected and meaningful ways assistive tools and technologies can benefit everyone.
Questions? Feedback? Ideas? Contact us at [email protected]
Additional Resources:
Videos:
Improving Reading Performance with Syntactic Formatting Technology
The Curb Cut effect – When Accessibility benefits everyone
Articles:
- Blackwell, A. G. (2016). The Curb-Cut Effect. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 15(1), 28–33. https://doi.org/10.48558/YVMS-CC96
- Walker, S., Schloss, P., Fletcher, C. R., Vogel, C. A., & Walker, R. C. (2005). Visual-syntactic text formatting: A new method to enhance online reading. Reading Online, 8(6).
