Speaker

Sharlene King

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Sharlene King is a designer at Morningstar, an independent financial research company, where she focuses on user experience. She has worked with AIGA as a director of programming and partnership for the Chicago chapter and in-house steering committee for the national team. She moonlights as a corrupter of youth by mentoring and teaching design to teens through the Adler Planetarium, Chicago Public Schools, and other mentorship programs. She's a budding animal behaviorist and terrifyingly accurate human behaviorist. She enjoys taking her dog and cat camping. She eats at least 2 pies of pizza a week unbeknownst to her doctor.
Chicago, IL June 10, 2017
Disabled by Design; Designed by Choice
There will be historical examples of discrimination against the disabled. I avoid the use of strong language or graphic examples in favor of discussion, but attendees who might be triggered by discussion should be aware.

Design is often the first obstacle we face as people that disables us. Adopting the social model of disability changes the mindset of designers to be inclusive and, ultimately, better designers. This talk is an overview of prevailing attitudes towards disability within design from video games to civil engineering and how it filters disastrously into culture from discrimination on OKCupid to broader oppression. How did design break accessibility in software? What are we doing to fix this? Is this the right thing to do?