Assistive Computing And Innovative Technologies with Dave Platt

The Independent Life

On today’s episode, Tony dives into a conversation with Dave Platt about assistive computing and his journey into making technological devices more accessible for people with disabilities and older adults.

Dave teaches user experience engineering at Harvard University Extension School, and at companies all over the world. He is the author of 12 books, and of MSDN Magazine’s monthly back-page column “Don’t Get Me Started” . Microsoft designated him a Software Legend in 2002

Dave’s journey into assisted computing and innovative technologies started when his father began experiencing limitations with the devices and technologies he wanted to use on a regular basis. Dave wanted to make sure his father had access to music, movies, sports, and all the things that he enjoyed watching or listening to. He sought out solutions to making these complicated systems, simpler. In his class at Harvard University Extension School, he assigns a project to his students to pick something that is widely used in the general population and thats technologically driven, then develop a way to make it simpler and more accessible for people with disabilities and those that might have limitations.

He started researching and teaching about user experience at Harvard extension school with the knowledge that we can now build any kind of software that we want to build - we’re no longer constrained by limitations. Now anything that we think can make our users happy or more productive is something that we can pursue developing. Dave shares the sentiment that anytime that a software does not meet its potential or does not meet the needs of its users, its not because we couldn’t do the right thing, but rather its because we didn’t know what the right thing was to do - at that time.

In this conversation Dave helped Tony to better understand the culture of programmers and helped to widen his perspective of it, sharing that there is a younger generation out there who are looking out for us so that we can be included in this wonderful new world. Together, Tony and Dave collectively resonate on a quote by Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Episode Resources:

• Dave's Assisted Computing™ project where you can find the original Spotify music app that Dave built for his Dad: https://assistedcomputing.org/
• TV Remote App for his dad: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/plattdave_dear-readers-im-looking-to-make-a-usable-activity-6947664384999452673-tHVr/
• Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321466756/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0321466756&linkCode=as2&tag=rollingthun01-20&linkId=CZVH2NMYBIMACAEB