Accessibility Is Not a Feature: Designing Inclusive University Ecosystems

Camilla Poggianti

University of Pisa, Italia

Resumen/Abstract

Accessibility in higher education extends beyond adapting interfaces, learning materials, or campus services. It arises from the interaction among students, physical spaces, teaching practices, information systems, and self-regulation needs. This seminar presents PhD research on assistive and immersive technologies for inclusive university life. The first part focuses on the logistical dimension of accessibility, discussing the design of a mobile application that supports students with diverse needs in their academic routines and frames accessibility as a cyber-physical process distributed across the student, the campus, and digital mediation. The second part addresses accessible educational content from both student and lecturer perspectives. It presents a semi-automated workflow for producing 3D-printed tactile STEM materials for blind and low-vision students, later extended into tactile IoT artifacts with audio feedback. The seminar concludes with preliminary findings on university teaching practices, aimed at supporting the accessible and sustainable integration of immersive technologies through inclusive design principles.

Curriculum ponente

Camilla Poggianti is a third-year PhD student in Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science, University of Pisa, Italy. She holds both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Digital Humanities from the same university. Her interdisciplinary background, bridging humanities and computer science, has shaped a strongly user-centered approach to research. Her work focuses on designing inclusive and accessible learning environments, with particular attention to assistive technologies, extended reality, human-computer interaction, and Universal Design for Learning. She is currently a Visiting PhD Student at UAM, where she is working on accessibility-aware approaches for integrating immersive technologies into university teaching.