Accessible Champaign County: Updating an Accessible Business Evaluation and Developing an Associated Mobile App

Academic mentor: Emily Tarconish

Community partner: Community Choices

Project Description: 
We are continuing to develop a project in which we consult with community members with disabilities to update an "accessible business" evaluation based on the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) standards for accessible design. The next steps to carry out for this project include conducting interviews with Community Choices members with disabilities to determine how the evaluation can be updated and streamlined. The Community-Academic Scholar will carry out the proposed changes to the evaluation and work with a software design team to turn the evaluation into a mobile application (I will train them to assist). The scholar will seek additional feedback from Community Choices members (via interviews) on the ease of use of the module application.

Research questions for the project include: 

• How can the accessibility business evaluation be updated to include additional accessibility considerations and streamlined to maximize ease of use?
• Once the evaluation is updated, how did the changes, including its development into a mobile application, improve ease of use for disabled community members.

The research team will conduct semi-structured interviews with CC staff and members to answer the research questions. Interviews will be transcribed, and we will use thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2012) to identify themes in the data. The survey items will also be analyzed and used to triangulate and expand upon the perspectives of those interviewed.

Role of the Community-Academic Scholar:
The Community-Academic Scholar will assist in interviewing CC members, analyzing the data, updating the evaluation according to their feedback, coordinating with me and a software designer to turn the digital evaluation into a mobile application, conduct additional interviews to receive feedback on the evaluation updates and transformation into a mobile app, and analyze interview data.