Inclusive Making
LS 351/451
EECS 397/497
DSGN 395
Fall 2017
Friday 09:00 – 11:50AM
NU Garage Workshop
Contact Information
Professor: Marcelo Worsley
Address: Annenberg 332, Ford SB.340,
E-mail:
Office Hours: TBD
Pre-requisites
Permission from the instructor.
Course Description
Excitement for the Maker Movement continues to grow. Part of this growth stems from the idea that Making provides a means for democratization of fabrication and invention. While this is true, in part, the practices and people that are typically included under this brand are limited. In particular, issues of diversity, equity and inclusivity are seldom at the forefront of the design and implementation of Makerspaces, the tools used or the artifacts created. Hence, the purpose of this course is to bring issues of diversity, equity and inclusivity to the forefront. In particular, the goals of this course are to push students to 1) critically explore Making as a practice that promotes democratization, 2) develop interfaces that allow a broader population of students to participate in digital fabrication and 3) design artifacts that positively impact accessibility and inclusivity. The course will include guest speakers, laboratory portions and a projects that encourages students to develop publishable scholarship and/or functional prototypes, as they work in interdisciplinary teams.
This is a hands-on project course. All students will design and implement interactive technologies. For this reason you will be expected to do computer programming and digital fabrication. However, all projects can be completed in teams. Hence, it is not essential that all students come with prior knowledge in computer programming and digital fabrication. Additionally, a portion of class and office hours will be devoted to helping students gain familiarity in basic digital fabrication and computer programming.
Grading
There are threehomework assignments and three project assignments for this class. Students are expected to complete all assignments on time. All assignments will be graded,and judged as either complete or incomplete.Please send me an email if you need to request an extension for any assignment. Late assignments will receive half credit if no prior arrangements have been made requesting an extension. Additionally, extensions will not be granted the day that the assignment is due, except under very extenuating circumstances. Assignments are due at 9 AM central time, on the date posted.
Student will also be assessed based on class participation both in class and virtually. Assessment of participation is not based on the volume of participation. Participating more frequently will not necessarily correlate with a higher participation score.
Assignments will be submitted on Canvas.
The grading breakdown is as follows:
- Class Participation: 10%
- Lead Class Discussion/Activity: 10%
- Homework Assignments: 20%
- Design Provocation 1: 15%
- Design Provocation 2: 15%
- Design Provocation 3: 30%
Class Participation (10%)
All students are expected to attend all sessions (unless students are granted prior excusal), and arrive to class on time. Additionally, students are expected to make meaningful contributions to classroom discussion by referencing pertinent elements of the assigned readings, asking thought provoking questions and/or critically engaging the comments/ideas of others, for example.
Lead Class Discussion(10%)
Each week 3-4 students will present on a reading, project, video, etc., related to the readings for that week. When appropriate, the presentation should include a hands-on demonstration/activity. Students will sign up for a presentation slot during the first week of the course. Students are free to work in groups of 1-4 persons. However, the expectation is that a four person team will develop a more complete presentation than a one-person team.
Homework assignments (20%)
Students will be required to submit seven homework assignments (excluding the final project) over the course of the term. Each assignments represents 5% of the final grade. The assignments are listed below:
Visit a Makerspace
Given that this course discusses Makerspaces, students are expected to visit two or more Makerspaces before the first class period. After visiting the space, students will document what they observed, and raise potential issues for accessibility or inclusivity within that space.
Dialoguewith a Community Member
A central element of designing, is getting to know your community. While we will not explicitly be designing for a specific person or organization, we do want to take some time to get to know and hear the perspective of someone that our designs could serve. In order to do this, you are asked to have coffee or a meal with a person with a disability, a caretaker, or someone else who has otherwise been marginalized. In the event that you do not know any such individual locally, the interaction can be conducted virtually. After completing this activity, you will produce a 1-2 page summary of what you learned.
Design Critiques
You will serve as reviewers for your peers. Following the first two design projects, each student will write a short review of someone else’s project. During this review you will identify things that the student did well, and also make suggestions for things that they may want to consider in the future.
Design Projects
Over the course of the term, students will develop three design projects. Each design provocation is listed below.
Design Provocation 1: Navigating a Makerspace through the senses
Makerspaces provide a number of ways for individuals to interact with digital technology. However, many of these experiences are currently limited to a small set of modalities. Please design and develop a prototype that allows the user to experience and/or navigate a Makerspace through non-traditional senses. Ultimately, we are looking for novel ways for participants to experience a given Makerspace.
Design Provocation 2: Beyond Vision
We often rely on our visual perception systems to execute many tasks within a Makerspace. For this assignment, you will do one of the following: 1) Design an interface to allows someone with a visual impairment to more easily design with a specific piece of technology; 2) Design something for an individual with visual impairment; 3) Develop a set of activities that allow something with visual impairment to learn something new within the Makerspace.
Design Provocation 3 – Undefined
For this assignment, you will identify your own design provocation, and develop a prototype that speaks to the identified need. Your selection for a design provocation will need to be approved by the course instructor.
With each design project, students will be expected to submit an initial design document, a mid-project update, and a final report. A template will be provided for each submission type.
Initial design document - The purpose of the initial design document is to clearly articulate the problem or need being addressed, the group’s plan for addressing that goal, in terms of a timeline, and in terms of potential solutions. The initial design document should also make reference to prior research, and any pertinent theories.
Mid-project update - The mid-project update describes progress that the group has made since starting the project. It identifies changes in the proposed timeline, potential challenges, and a more detailed description of the next design iterations.
Final report - The final reports will be in the form of a conference poster/demo submission. Students will be expected to submit at least one of their three design final reports to a conference or workshop of their choosing.The final report represents a polishsed form of the design process, and highlights the essential components of the design. It includes theoretical and practical justifications for the designs, and re-iterates the problem or need. Ideally, the final report will also describe some user testing.
Readings
Alper, M. (2013). Making space in the makerspace: Building a mixed-ability maker culture. Interaction Design and Children Conference. Retrieved from
Alper, M. (2014). Digital Youth with Disabilities.
Alper, M. (2017). Introduction. Giving Voice, 1–34.
Alper, M., & Goggin, G. (2017). Digital technology and rights in the lives of children with disabilities. New Media & Society, 146144481668632.
Bell, P., Van Horne, K., & Cheng, B. H. (2017). Special Issue: Designing Learning Environments for Equitable Disciplinary Identification. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 8406(June), 10508406.2017.1336021.
Blikstein, P. (2013). Multimodal learning analytics. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge - LAK ’13, 102.
Blikstein, P., & Worsley, M. (2016). Children are not Hackers: Building a Culture of Powerful Ideas, Deep Learning, and Equity in the Maker Movement. In Y. Kafai & K. Peppler (Eds.), Makeology. Routledge.
Buehler, E., Comrie, N., Hofmann, M., McDonald, S., & Hurst, A. (2016). Investigating the Implications of 3D Printing in Special Education. ACM Trans. Access. Comput., 8(3), 11:1--11:28.
Buehler, E., Kane, S. K., & Hurst, A. (2014). ABC and 3D: Opportunities and Obstacles to 3D Printing in Special Education Environments. In Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (pp. 107–114). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
Crawford, C. S., Andujar, M., & Gilbert, J. E. (2015). Neurophysiological Heat Maps for Human-Robot Interaction Evaluation.
Crawford, C. S., & Gilbert, J. E. (2017). NeuroBlock : A Block-Based Programming Approach to Neurofeedback Application Development.
Dougherty, D. (2013). The maker mindset. … , Make, Play: Growing the Next Generation of …. Retrieved from
FabLearn Labs. (2016). Meaningful Making. Retrieved from
Freire, P. (1987). Pedagogia do oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra.
Goodley, D. (2013). Dis/entangling critical disability studies. Disability & Society, 28(5), 631–644.
Hernandez, J., Riobo, I., Rozga, A., Abowd, G. D., & Picard, R. W. (2014). Using electrodermal activity to recognize ease of engagement in children during social interactions. Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing - UbiComp ’14 Adjunct, 307–317.
Hurst, A., & Kane, S. (2013). Making “Making” Accessible. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 635–638). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
Katz, V. S., & Gonzalez, C. (2016). Toward Meaningful Connectivity: Using Multilevel Communication Research to Reframe Digital Inequality. Journal of Communication, 66(2), 236–249.
Ladner, R. (2014). Design for user empowerment. Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI EA ’14, 5–6.
Lazar, A., Cornejo, R., Edasis, C., & Piper, A. M. (2016). Designing for the Third Hand : Empowering Older Adults with Cognitive Impairments through Creating and Sharing. Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’16), 1047–1058.
Lazar, A., Edasis, C., & Piper, A. M. (2017). A Critical Lens on Dementia and Design in HCI. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’17, 2175–2188.
Leong, C. W., Chen, L., Feng, G., Lee, C. M., & Mulholland, M. (2015). Utilizing depth sensors for analyzing multimodal presentations: Hardware, software and toolkits. ICMI 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, (3), 547–556.
Levitt, J. M. (2017). Exploring how the social model of disability can be re-invigorated: in response to Mike Oliver. Disability & Society, 32(4), 589–594.
Martin, L. (2015). The promise of the Maker Movement for education. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(1), 4.
Martinez, M. O., Morimoto, T. K., Taylor, A. T., Barron, A. C., Pultorak, J. D. A., Wang, J., … Okamura, A. M. (2016). 3-D printed haptic devices for educational applications. In Proc. IEEE Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS) (pp. 126–133).
Meekosha, H., & Shuttleworth, R. (2009). What’s so “critical” about critical disability studies ? Australian Journal of Human Rights, 15(1), 47–76.
Milne, L. R., Bennett, C. L., & Ladner, R. E. (2014). The Accessibility of Mobile Health Sensors for Blind Users. International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference Scientific/Research Proceedings (CSUN 2014), 166–175.
Papert, S., & Harel, I. (1991). Situating constructionism. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.), Constructionism (Vol. 36, pp. 1–11).
Ratto, M. (2011). Critical making: Conceptual and material studies in technology and social life. Information Society, 27, 252–260.
Ringland, K. E., Boyd, L., Faucett, H., Cullen, A. L. L., & Hayes, G. R. (2017). Making in Minecraft. Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children - IDC ’17, 340–345.
Roldan, W., Hui, J., & Gerber, E. M. (2017). Opportunities to Support Equitable Participation for Women in Engineering.
Shen, H., Edwards, O., Miele, J., & Coughlan, J. M. (2013). CamIO : a 3D Computer Vision System Enabling Audio / Haptic Interaction with Physical Objects by Blind Users. 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility.
Stangl, A., & Yeh, T. (2015). Transcribing Across the Senses : Community Efforts to Create 3D Printable Accessible Tactile Pictures for Young Children with Visual Impairments. Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility, 127–137.
Swaminathan, S., Roumen, T., Kovacs, R., Stangl, D., Mueller, S., & Baudisch, P. (2016). Linespace: A Sensemaking Platform for the Blind. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’16, 2175–2185.
Taylor, P. (2009). Text-to-Speech Synthesis.
Turkle, S., & Papert, S. (1992). Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 11(1), 1–30.
Voices, S. (n.d.). Making a Makerspace ? Guidelines for Accessibility and Universal Design.
Vossoughi, S., Hooper, P. A. K., & Escudé, M. (2016). Making Through the Lens of Culture Visions for Educational Equity. Harvard Educational Review, 86(2), 206–232.
Wobbrock, J. O., Kane, S. K., Gajos, K. Z., Harada, S., & Froehlich, J. (2011). Ability-Based Design: Concept, Principles and Examples. ACM Transactions on, 3(3), 1–36.
Below is a tentative schedule of the topics and activities that we will be completing each week.(* Indicates optional)
Week / Date / Topic / Activity / Assignment Due / PotentialSpeakers / Readings Due
1 / 9/22 / Introduction to Makerspaces / Laser cutting / Visit a Makerspace & Dialogue with a Community Member / (Blikstein, 2013; Blikstein & Worsley, 2016; Dougherty, 2013; Freire, 1987; Goodley, 2013; Ladner, 2014; Levitt, 2017; Martin, 2015; Meekosha & Shuttleworth, 2009; Papert & Harel, 1991)
2 / 9/29 / Issues of Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity in Making: Access / Microcontrollers + Low Tech Prototyping / Design Provocation 1- Initial Project Design / Accessible NU / (Alper, 2013; Hurst & Kane, 2013; Swaminathan et al., 2016; Voices, n.d.; Wobbrock, Kane, Gajos, Harada, & Froehlich, 2011)
3 / 10/6 / Issues of Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity in Making: Practices, Culture and Pedagogy / Class Lab Time / Design Provocation 1- Mid Project Update / Shirin Vossoughi & Chris Crawford / (Bell, Van Horne, & Cheng, 2017; FabLearn Labs, 2016; Katz & Gonzalez, 2016; Ratto, 2011; Roldan, Hui, & Gerber, 2017; Turkle & Papert, 1992; Vossoughi, Hooper, & Escudé, 2016)
4 / 10/13 / Introduction to Multimodal Sensors, Actuators and Virtual Reality / Multimodal Playground / Navigating Makerspaces through the senses / Tiilt lab members / (Crawford, Andujar, & Gilbert, 2015; Crawford & Gilbert, 2017; Hernandez, Riobo, Rozga, Abowd, & Picard, 2014; Leong, Chen, Feng, Lee, & Mulholland, 2015; Martinez et al., 2016)
5 / 10/20 / Making and Visual Impairment: Making for the Blind / Tactile Picture Books Activity / Design Provocation 2 – Initial Project Design / Abigail Stangl / (Buehler, Comrie, Hofmann, McDonald, & Hurst, 2016; Buehler, Kane, & Hurst, 2014; Stangl & Yeh, 2015)
6 / 10/27 / Making and Visual Impairment: Helping the Blind Make / Class Lab Time / Design Provocation 2 – Mid Project Update / Gabriela T Richards / (Alper & Goggin, 2017; Milne, Bennett, & Ladner, 2014; Shen, Edwards, Miele, & Coughlan, 2013)
Project Torino
7 / 11/3 / Making, Dexterity & Voice Technologies / Beyond Vision / Tiilt lab members / (Alper, 2017; Taylor, 2009)
Project Emma;
tiilt Accesible Design Paper
Zebreda Makes it Work
8 / 11/10 / Making and Dementia/Older Adults / Design Provocation 3 - Initial Project Design / Anne Marie
Piper / (Lazar, Cornejo, Edasis, & Piper, 2016; Lazar, Edasis, & Piper, 2017)
9 / 11/17 / Youth, Disability and personal expression / Class Lab Time / Design Provocation 3 – Mid Project Update / Liz Gerber / (Alper, 2014; Ringland, Boyd, Faucett, Cullen, & Hayes, 2017)
10 / 11/25 / No class / Thanksgiving
11 / 12/1 / Final Expo and Presentations / Final Expo
9:30 – 10:30
12 / 12/8 / Final Paper
Accommodations for students with disabilities
Any student requesting accommodations related to a disability or other condition is required to register with AccessibleNU(; 847-467-5530) and provide professors with an accommodation notification from AccessibleNU,preferably within the first two weeks of class. All information will remain confidential.
Academic Integrity
Students in this course are required to comply with the policies found in the booklet, "Academic Integrity at Northwestern University: A Basic guide". All papers submitted for credit in this course must be submitted electronically unless otherwise instructed by the professor. Your written work may be tested for plagiarized content. For details regarding academic integrity at Northwestern or to download the guide, visit: