In February, two members of the Coleman Institute’s leadership team - Dr. Bodine, Executive Director, and Dr. Clayton Lewis, advisory board member and former interim Co-Director - were honored to speak at the 2023 Future of Interface (FOI) Workshop. This two-day workshop brought together over 1500 registrants and featured 50+ expert panelists from academia, mainstream and AT industries, government, consumer groups, and more. It set out to accomplish three goals: 1) explore visions of what the future of interface might look like; 2) propose different approaches to make these future interfaces accessible for all; and 3) begin the process of creating a research and development (R&D) agenda. Once complete, the R&D agenda will be available as a resource for funding agencies, policy makers, researchers, and developers in academia and industry, and other individuals, groups, and programs concerned with accessibility.

Dr. Bodine and Dr. Lewis’s panel was titled “Cognitive, Language, and Learning Disabilities – (Challenges & Approaches).” According to FOI members, the area of cognitive, language, and learning disabilities has been one of the areas they have consistently had the most difficultly in addressing. Because the technologies that will emerge over the next 20 years have the potential to finally address barriers for this group in ways that was not possible before, Dr. Bodine and Dr. Lewis’s panel was put together. They explored what human-computer interfaces might look like in 20 years and discussed how to make them accessible for everyone.