How disabled people experience their access to technology

Katta Spiel researches how people with disabilities experience their access to technology. For this work, Spiel has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant. When developing a technology, access considerations for people with disabilities is often secondary. This occurs when a non-disabled designer fails to consider their different lived experience compared to that of a person with a disability. Therefore, as part of the Experiencing Access with Interactive Technologies (ACCESSTECH for short) project, Prof. Katta Spiel is looking at access to technology for disabled people in three defined contexts. What is unique about this approach is that the researchers themselves have the disability that is to be investigated in the context of access to a particular technology. In total, three technological contexts will be investigated in terms of their accessibility for people with a specific disability.