We're launching RampNet, an open-source AI that helps detect curb ramps with near-human accuracy.

The most amazing part? The entire project was conceived of and led by high school student John O'Meara.

🧵 A thread on what we built and why it matters.

This saddens me deeply. I have greatly benefited from working w/extraordinary international students; they have brought me & my lab incredible energy, ideas, & helped create some of the most gratifying & important breakthroughs in my career. They are in fear. Not OK! www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05...

📢 We are delighted to announce our ICCV 2025 workshop on "Vision Foundation Models and Generative AI for Accessibility: Challenges & Opportunities"!

Two submission tracks: extended abstracts and full papers—the latter published in the ICCV workshop proceedings.

cv4a11y.github.io/ICCV2025/ind...

One map fits all? 🤔 Unfortunately, no! Our #CHI2025 study reveals significant differences in how cane, walker, scooter & wheelchair users perceive sidewalk barriers. Dataset & paper: makeabilitylab.cs.washington.edu/project/acce... This is work led by the amazing @chimichurrichu.bsky.social

Addendum: sources tell me it's #CHI2025! 🤣😂

Also, first-year PhD student @jaredhwang.bsky.social will also be at CHI (first-time attendee). Please say hello 👋🏽. Jared is interested in AI applications to large-scale urban problems (bikeability, walkability, accessibility, climate-resilience).

#CHI2015 in Japan is here! The Makeability Lab has 3 full papers and 1 late-breaking work spanning research on urban accessibility & urban sensing, sound rec, & creative design tools using depth estimation. Congrats Chu, Daniel, & Xia! See: makeabilitylab.cs.washington.edu/news/four-pa...

Special shout out to Project Sidewalk's lead engineer, Mikey Saugstad @ismikey.bsky.social, who has contributed not just countless lines of code but has mentored dozens of MS, undergrad, & high schoolers. Huge impact! Our GitHub repo: 10k commits from 77 contributors. github.com/ProjectSidew...

Incredible milestone reached for one our lab's flagship projects. Huge thanks to the many partners and contributors: 100+ undergrads, multiple PhD students (spanning three generations!), dozens of high schoolers, and, of course, our NGOs & local community advocacy groups. Try it: projectsidewalk.org

Hello! 👋 We are an open-source research project run by the @makeabilitylab.bsky.social. We have a two-pronged vision: first, to develop scalable data collection methods for sidewalk accessibility data using crowdsourcing, computer vision, and online map imagery; and second,

⚠️ We're recruiting participants for a research study! We'd like to understand how people use disability parking. Fill out this screener if you fit the criteria, and we may reach out to interview you.

🔗 tinyurl.com/uw-parking-screener
💸 $25/hr compensation

What is $131,742? Answer: this is how much it costs me to fund a PhD student per year for a full RAship in CS at UW (including 100% during the summer). PhD funding can be a confusing topic at US universities. Want to learn more? Take a look at our lab handbook: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Love the influx of academics to Bluesky. Will this be our new 🏠? To help grow the community, I just created an HCI+Accessibility "starter pack". Help me grow the list! Many are missing! go.bsky.app/PZxHNqP

Hello 👋🏽, we are a research lab in Human-AI directed by Professor @jonfroehlich.bsky.social at UW. We specialize in HCI & applied machine learning for high-impact problems in accessibility, computational urban science, and augmented reality. See makeabilitylab.cs.washington.edu

As we work on those #CHI2025 videos (deadline: Sept 19), here is a set of inspirational videos 🎥 curated by my lab. Would love more examples, especially for other HCI research contribution types. Send them my way!

docs.google.com/presentation...