Centering Accessibility for Disabled Community

In the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic moved everything online, Nate Tilton was on his way to a classroom labeled as accessible. Except, when Tilton arrived, he realized the accessible spot in the classroom was actually too tight to maneuver his power wheelchair. So, he spent the entirety of the lecture (and the following lectures, until the classrooms were switched) facing the wall.

Tilton has been a student at the University of California at Berkeley since 2018, and, through trial and error, word of mouth and his own exploration, he has come to know the campus well.

Nate Tilton, far left, holds up a low-cost
accessible gaming controller made at the lab.Berkeley is built on a hill, and the angle gets progressively steeper on its north side. Accessing labs on the north side of campus seemed impossible, until a lab manager revealed an unmarked yet accessible pathway. Bathrooms labeled with accessible placards would often turn out to be anything but, as a poorly placed sink would block the entrance of anyone using a power chair.

“That’s why we’re doing this project,” says Tilton, referring to Radical Mapping, an open, crowd-sourced navigation app designed to pass on institutional knowledge to new students with mobility disabilities. 

Tilton brought the idea to the Berkeley Disability Lab, where he works as lab manager. The beta launch for radical mapping is set to debut in the winter or spring for smartphones and desktops, and it will be free for users to access. After all, removing traditional barriers to accessibility is one of the reasons Dr. Karen Nakamura created the lab in 2018.

The Disability Lab is situated on the south side of Berkeley’s campus, where the terrain is flatter and  there’s easy access to public transit. The lab, funded by Robert and Colleen Haas, is equipped with adjustable tables, work benches, tabletops, lighting intensity controls and equipment designed with disabled needs in mind. The lab is a nexus for the disability community, a place where their challenges and needs can meet with the resources Berkeley and Silicon Valley have available, says Nakamura. 

Eliminating barriers to access