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CREATE at UW

Accessibility-Related UW Courses

Looking for courses that include curriculum about accessibility? Start here, then confirm availability and logistics in the UW course catalog, MyPlan, and the department course listings.

CSE 340 – Interaction Programming

User interfaces for computing systems, including principles and implementation techniques. Covers key topics and programming paradigms for interactive systems, such as event handling; graphical layout, design, and widgets; undo; accessibility; and context awareness. Provides experience with modern application domains and frameworks (e.g., mobile applications).

CSE 440 – Introduction to HCI

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) theory and techniques. Methods for designing, prototyping, and evaluating user interfaces to computing applications. Human capabilities, interface technology, interface design methods, and interface evaluation tools and techniques.

CSE 482 – Capstone Software Design to Empower Underserved Populations

Students work in teams to design and implement a software project involving multiple areas of the CSE curriculum, for the purpose of empowering marginalized or underserved populations.

CSE 493e – Accessibility

Explore how computing can enable new solutions to accessibility, including both access to the world and access to computers. Similarly, the course will investigate how a disability-led perspective can guide us in the development of empowering and relevant solutions to accessibility problems. Both topics will be addressed through a combination of discussions, reading, and building.

CSE 513 – Disability Inclusion & Accessibility for Technologists

App accessibility and how accessibility can be incorporated into cutting-edge CS topics like AI, machine learning, and fabrication. Learn about the interaction of accessibility technology and society and how computing can enable new solutions to accessibility, how a disability studies perspective can guide us to develop empowering and relevant solutions to accessibility problems, and valuable insights into the future of all interactive technologies. CSE Ph.D. quals course.

Previously offered as CSE 513e (see Spring 2024, Spring 2023 info), where final projects have led to or contributed to publications. For example:

CSE 590k – Assistive Robotics Reading Group

We will read newer papers on the topic from the accessibility and research methods, robotics, and occupational therapy literature to expand our knowledge with the state-of-the-art and identify more unexplored opportunities for robots to assist people.

CSE 590w – Accessibility Research Seminar

The seminar is for students and faculty members to explore research in accessible computing for people with disabilities in the context of human-computer interaction (HCI). The seminar consists of short student presentations of current research results, followed by discussion and critical evaluations the research. Topics vary by quarter.

DISST – Disabilities Studies courses

Disability Studies is a multi-disciplinary field that investigates, critiques, and enhances Western society’s understandings of disability.

DIS ST 391 – Disability and Society: A Focus on the Community

Nine people pausing on a variety of adaptive bicycles. One participant leads a discussion. They are on a wide, paved park trail.

Explore what it means to provide access and disability justice for community members in recreation spaces. Jason Naranjo, a Disability Studies core faculty, has partnered with the Outdoors for All Foundation to create Summer and Winter courses that combine classroom time and outdoor experiences. In the field, students support access to rock climbing, paddle sports, cycling, and snow sports.

DISST 300 – Disability Studies in Education

Examine history, theory, values, and assumptions about disability to develop a critical understanding of how disability is situated in the contexts of schools and society. Explore how disability is defined within our educational system and in society at large. Weekly guest speakers share their lived experiences and perspectives on the topics at hand (scholars, teachers, parents, students, and activists). Focus is historical and theoretical foundations for defining disability; disability in the context of public schooling; and the relationship between disability, social change, and equitable access to opportunity.

DISST 332 – Disability & Society: A Focus on Community and the Outdoors

Community-based, applied learning in disability studies by making outdoor play and recreation accessible to people with disabilities. In partnership with the Outdoors For All Foundation and through service-learning, academic texts, and contemporary media explore: access and barriers to inclusive play and recreation; allyship and social change; and the importance of outdoor play and recreation across the lifespan. Choice of activities depend on student’s experience with activities offered and our partner’s needs. 

DISST 360 – Redesigning Humanity: Disability in Speculative Fiction

Analyze science fiction texts centering stories and novels by Black disabled authors and several films that use speculative settings and nonrealist conventions to comment on contemporary social issues and bioethical debates. Focus is on the connection between speculative fiction, the field of disability studies (DS), and the work of BIPOC and queer Disability Justice (DJ) activists and scholars. Consider representations of disability and neurodivergence, including intersections of racism and ableism, in which authors and readers create new meanings of accessibility, identity, community, family, justice, normal, and human.

DISST / HSTCMP 402 & 502 – Topics in Disability

Hybrid course to center disability in historical inquiry, engaging with topics and themes in the histories of disability in the U.S. in 19th – 21st centuries. Synchronous or asynchronous readings, discussions, written responses to readings, and a final paper/project.

Gen St 297 – Disability 101: Identity, Education, Careers, & Leadership

Small-group discussion with faculty representing a wide spectrum of academic disciplines. Topics include faculty’s research techniques or findings, concentrated reading in his/her area of interest, or illustrated problems and alternative related to the study of a particular academic discipline. Class structure varies based on instructor.

HCDE 315 – Inclusive Design and Engineering

Surveys a range of methods that examine, support, and interrogate design and engineering for disability and inclusivity. Students enact inclusive methods, reflect on their capacities to broaden design and engineering goals, and critique and evaluate their effectiveness from a variety of perspectives.

HCDE 515 – Accessibility and Inclusive Design

Introduction to designing, prototyping, and evaluating inclusive user interfaces that meet the needs of a diverse range of users – such as older adults, users with visual, cognitive or motor disabilities, and users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Building on basic concepts in human-centered design, students learn about design exclusion and barriers to use, and methods by which these can be overcome.

HCDE Directed Research Group

Students in the Tactile Graphics Directed Research Group work in teams to develop workflows for tactile graphics. In this showcase, view demos of hardware and software solutions for low-cost Blind and Low Vision making and tactile biomechanics diagrams.

HCDE 596 Directed Research in Human Centered Design and Engineering

Students working in teams and supervised by faculty, review relevant literature, pose research questions, design and conduct studies, and present the results in papers prepared for submission to a professional journal or for presentation at a professional conference.

HCDE 598b Critical Technology Practice

A combination of critical theory and methods, the course acknowledges that technology has been an object of power and exclusion, enabling systemic injustices such as racism, ableism, and classism. The course explores counter-practices of technology research and design toward dismantling exclusionary technology production. Students will make artifacts conveying their interpretations of critical technology practice.

INFO 498 – Special Topics in Informatics: Accessibility

Making the world and its information accessible can be crucial for supporting independent living and providing equal access to the information-rich world for millions of people. This class will cover concepts related to inclusive design, why accessibility is important, what access technologies already exist, and how to make interfaces and technologies accessible. Through a combination of readings, hands-on exercises, and an open-ended project, students will learn about the history and existing state of accessibility, where its future might be, and how to apply its principles and guidelines in practice.

Perhaps of Interest:
INFO 104 Technology Ethics, Policy, and Law »

Drawing from law, ethics, and science and technology studies, introduces the ways society seeks to mitigate the harms of emerging technology and to promote human flourishing. (Spring 2025)

UW Professional & Continuing Education:
UW Specialization in Web & Digital Accessibility »

A single, 12-week course for nontechnical (and technical) professionals, compliance coordinators, program administrators, social service professionals, disability service providers, educators, content creators, and advocates in any field. UW certificate and digital badge awarded upon successful completion.

  • 100% asynchronous, online
  • $1525

ITA 340 – Introduction to Web Publishing

Introduction to markup languages and publishing web content. Students gain understanding of HTML coding and extensions, image manipulation, information architecture, and web site publishing. Includes the Web Accessibility Initiative.

ITA 341 – Client-side Scripting and Design

Introduction to web browser design environment, scripting languages, JavaScript, Document Object Model, and creation of dynamic HTML web pages in combination with Cascading Style Sheets. Includes client-server architecture and web design principles in the contexts of technical feasibility, usability, and accessibility.

HCID 501 – Immersion Studio

A five-day intensive workshop that orients students to core ideas and terminology in HCI and design, provide some key skills that will be instrumental in success in a studio learning environment, and provide students with a intriguing portfolio story worth talking about with industry professionals.

PMP – Future of Access Technologies

Accessible technologies are at the forefront of technological innovation in a changing society. This class covers these cutting edge technologies, teaches thinking about access and inclusion, and looks at some of the history and critical theory around disability. Primarily, this is a class to build in, and we will learn about physical access technology using Arduinos and fabrication tools as well as software access technology. This is a graduate class with a fairly open-ended project at the end.

REHAB 566 – Disability and Health: Tensions, Intersections, and Opportunities

Interrogate ways of thinking about disability and health within historical and contemporary healthcare practice and lay communities. Engage in critical analysis of disability and how tensions between various understandings of disability influence healthcare delivery, health professions education, and dominant social discourses of health and wellness, including the intersectional relationship between disability and other marginalized identities.  

Extracurricular and experiential:
Student competitions, -fests and -thons

Collage of photographs from various experiential hackfests and competitions. Two photos of students collaborating on prototypes; one of a student team holding a large, cardboard check at an innovation challenge.

CREATE, HuskyADAPT, the Taskar Center, and community partners host hackfests and hackathons each year. These events are intended to be fun, challenging, and accessible opportunities to generate new research ideas, pursue solutions to accessibility problems, work with mentors and peers, and gain new skills.

Farther afield

Student teams across the Pacific Northwest and across disciplines present their innovative research projects and compete for recognition and money prizes. All teams receive invaluable experience and feedback from judges. These challenges are hosted by the UW Foster School of Business’ Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.

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