Excel Students Design Customized Technologies Through HCI-centered Course

Georgia Tech students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are designing technologies tailored to them while teaching faculty and researchers about their needs in the process.

Rachel Lowy, a Ph.D. student in the School of Interactive Computing, piloted a new human-computer interaction design course for IDD students in Georgia Tech’s Excel program. Excel is an Inclusive Postsecondary Education (IPSE) program that offers a four-year track for IDD students to earn two separate certificates.

Lowy said the course differs from typical technology courses taught to IDD students. It provides autonomy and encourages students to contribute input on how the course is designed and which technology projects they want to create. They reflect critically on the role of technology in the world and use that reflection to design technology for themselves.