Talking Accessibility: How Teams and Stakeholders Collaborate to Make an Accessible Product
AUTHORS - Oliver Luo
ABSTRACT - In this Tanzu blog post, the author emphasizes that accessibility isn’t just a technical requirement but a shared responsibility between development team and its stakeholders to align on from the very start. They outline why accessible design and development matter, from ethical, legal, usability, and business cost savings perspectives. They then present key principles such as engaging stakeholders early, embedding accessibility in user research, continuous testing, and aligning audit cycles with product releases. Finally, they offer practical “talking points” and responses to common pushback from stakeholders that can help teams advocate for accessibility more thoughtfully and productively. Throughout, the message is that accessible designs benefit both users and the organization when treated as a fundamental part of the process.
KEYWORDS - Digital accessibility, accessible product development, inclusive software design, stakeholder alignment and expectation management, accessibility best practices
PUBLICATION - Blog entry on the Vmware (by Broadcom) Tanzu Labs practice site
CITATION - VMware Tanzu Team (3 Nov 2023). Talking Accessibility: How Teams and Stakeholders Collaborate to Make an Accessible Product. VMware Tanzu Blog.
Designing for Serendipity in the Digital Space
AUTHORS - Oliver Luo, Allen Sayegh
ABSTRACT - The shift to remote work and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to loss of opportunities for informal, serendipitous encounters that once occurred in shared physical spaces. These unplanned interactions often contribute to a sense of community and can significantly influence personal and professional trajectories. This research explores how digital experience and environment designers might intentionally design for serendipity. Drawing on existing literature, the study synthesizes insights into a user journey map of serendipitous encounters. From this framework, it identifies key challenges and opportunities for design approaches that support spontaneity, examine assumptions and biases in defined and determined systems, and engage thoughtfully with the unpredictable nature of serendipitous experiences.
KEYWORDS - Digital serendipity, fortuitous chance encounters, design challenges and opportunities.
PUBLICATION - Unpublished manuscript at the Harvard Graduate School of Design 2020 summer research grant archive.
CITATION - Luo, O. & Sayegh, A. (2020). Designing for Serendipity in the Digital Space [Unpublished manuscript]. Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab (REAL), Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Attributes of Aliveness: A Case Study of Two Interactive Public Art Installations
AUTHORS - Humbi Song, Oliver Luo, Allen Sayegh
ABSTRACT - What elements make people think that an interactive public art installation seems “alive”? To answer this question, the paper examines the design and the reception of two public artworks by the INVIVIA studio: MIMMI and PULSUS. Both are responsive installations that aggregate collective data and interpret it through elements such as vibrations, lighting, and/or mists, but differences in design decisions have led to different perceptions of their aliveness. Through the case study, paper identifies key attributes in an installation that contribute to the sense of aliveness and discusses the importance of considering aliveness in design. While these attributes are distilled from public art examples, they can generally apply to designed objects that are, through technological augmentation, physically interactive at the human scale.
KEYWORDS - Aliveness, perception, human-technology interaction, technological augmentation, public art installation.
PUBLICATION - Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) 2019: Beyond Intelligence, MIT, conference proceedings.
CITATION - Song, H., Luo, O., & Sayegh, A. (2019). Attributes of Aliveness: A Case Study of Two Interactive Public Art Installations. Proceedings of the Design and Semantics of Form and Movement 2019: Beyond Intelligence, 254-257. https://desform19.org/DeSForM_2019_Proceedings.pdf.