IxDA Pittsburgh is kicking off 2021 with a unique talk from a unique member of our community. Greg Weinstein has a little something for everyone, from accessibility and inclusivity to designing with sound and a little pop. We’re still meeting virutally, of course, but we’ll have a little time for socializing before Greg gets rolling. “Doors open” at 5:30, and the talk starts at 6:00.

About the Talk

One of the core principles of accessible design is ensuring flexibility of use, so that users with different abilities are equally able to enjoy the design. All too often, though, designs are conceived only in terms of the visual, excluding potential users who may need other sensory information in order to interact with the design on par with others. In this talk, I argue that in order for design to be truly inclusive and accessible, designers need to think about design as a broadly sensory experience, and one element of that experience is sound. Sound conveys critical information for many people with a wide variety of visual abilities and preferences, and it should be considered equal to visual design. My talk will begin with some core ideas about how sound conveys information, proceed to a discussion of the role sound plays in good user experience, and conclude with the importance of sound to the flexibility and inclusivity of design. I will include examples from my own ethnographic work and that of a handful of other UX practitioners, and I might even play a recording by Carly Rae Jepsen to help illustrate my argument.

About Greg

Gregory Weinstein (Ph.D., CPACC) is a design researcher and accessibility specialist. He is trained as an Ethnomusicologist and in a previous career he taught courses on popular music and conducted research into the technical and poetic dimensions of classical music recording in the U.K. Greg currently works as a Senior Accessibility Designer for CVS Health, and in his free time, he continues to pursue soundscapes and sound recording as a user research method.