Jonathan Lazar on Locked Out: Investigating Societal Discrimination Against People with Disabilities Due to Inaccessible Websites
Wednesday, February 13, 2013 | 4:00 pm
Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Jonathan Lazar is a professor of Computer and Information Sciences, director of the undergraduate program inInformation Systems, and founder and director of the Universal Usability Laboratory, all at Towson University. His research in human-computer interaction focuses on understanding how people with disabilities interact with technologies, how improved interface design can change the quality of life for people with disabilities, and how human-computer interaction and public policy influence each other.
With his fellowship project as a Radcliffe Fellow, Lazar seeks to improve understanding of the relationship between web-based interfaces that are inaccessible to people with disabilities, and how those inaccessible interfaces lead to forms of discrimination that are illegal under US law. As part of the project, he is writing a book about the topic and collaborating on research with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability. For his fellowship presentation, he will discuss equal access to web-based information and societal discrimination in five areas: federal government, state government, county-level emergency alert information, airline reservations, and employment applications.
Lazar has published more than 120 refereed articles in journals, books, and conference proceedings. He has also authored three books and edited three, including Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction (Wiley, 2010), Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations (Wiley, 2007), and Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach (Addison Wesley, 2006). He was awarded a 2011 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Public Service, a 2010 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award from the National Federation of the Blind for working towards achieving the full integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality, and a 2009 Innovator of the Year Award from the Maryland Daily Record for his work on improving the accessibility of web-based security features. He earned MS and PhD degrees in Information Systems from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a BBA degree in Management Information Systems from Loyola University Maryland, where he received the Rev. Daniel McGuire SJ Alumni Association Service Award. He currently serves as chair of public policy for ACM SIGCHI (the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction).
This event is free and open to the public. ASL interpretation will be provided. Please forward this notice to anyone who may be interested in attending.
For more information or to request any disability-related accommodations, please visit www.radcliffe.harvard.edu or call (617) 495 – 8212.