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GRACE TEO: In terms of
choosing our clients

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there were a few criteria
that we were looking for.

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Other then the fact that
they had a disability,

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you had to have
been pretty stable,

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so it wasn't going
to be fluctuating

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too much over the semester.

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And that is to make the design
constraints a little bit more

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simple for the students.

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Apart from a stable
disability, I

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think what we loved
about the clients

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this semester is
their motivation

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to educate our students.

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Having that intrinsic
quality of being an educator

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was important for us.

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They had to be able to
articulate their challenges

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really well for the
students, and be

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able to be patient
with the students,

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because they're all learning
through this process.

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And they might not
get the design process

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right the first time.

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But having clients
that were adventurous,

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willing to try out new
things with the students,

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that was very important.

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The third piece was
purely logistical.

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So, our students
are going to want

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to interact with their
clients as many times as

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possible over the semester, so
we made sure that they were all

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accessible from MIT, I
think within a one hour

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radius of MIT.

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I think one thing you'll find
in a disability community

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is that once you
talk to one person,

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it's such a tight community
that word travels really fast.

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So we had a little
bit of a lucky break

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in that we contacted the
Cambridge Commission for People

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with Disabilities,
and Kate Thurman there

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helped us to send out an
email to the entire community

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of people with disabilities.

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And then I'm pretty sure we got
about 50 emails, if not more,

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from people who were
interested in being clients.

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And so we either tried to
talk to them over the phone

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or visit them in person
to get to know them.

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WILLIAM LI: I think, to
be very honest though,

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in terms of having clients
involved in the class--

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participating in lectures
and some of the labs,

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and also certainly being very
much a part of the design

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process-- to be very honest
it's a tricky decision,

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and something that we decided
to try this year sort of to see

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what would happen.

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I think a big part
of it is really

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the user-centered or
participatory design

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nature of the class
that we really

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want students to understand
the person that they're

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working with.

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Understand their challenges, and
realities, in all the contexts

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that they're in, in
their home, or when

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they're out in Boston,
or even at MIT as well.

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So I think one big part of it
was to really give students

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the opportunity to interact
more with their clients,

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and really get their feedback
quickly, and work on the design

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process together.

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I think the other
part is we really

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tried to see our
clients as collaborators

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with the students.

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As Grace mentioned,
really, I think

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clients are most attuned
to their own needs,

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and their own ideas.

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Or their own needs in terms
of what assistive technologies

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might be useful.

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So they really are
able to give kind

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of the best possible feedback.

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So having them [? embedded, ?]
or participating in the class,

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I think was really important
and really a valuable experiment

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or experience to try.

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GRACE TEO: William
is exactly right.

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It was an experiment this year.

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We had lab assistants
in the class this year

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who were students last
year, and they did not

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have clients in their class.

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And when we first
made a decision

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to say OK, clients
can be in our class,

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and our lab assistants
saw how that was going,

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they raised quite
a few concerns.

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By the end of the
day we said, you

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know what, our
students just need

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to learn how to negotiate
these situations.

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It's part of the
learning process.

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It's an important thing
to be able to work around

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these kinds of situations.

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And that's fine.

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The other thing
that I don't like

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is when we talk
about disability,

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or we teach students how
to talk about disability,

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as if people with
disabilities are

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this outside group
that we are kind

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of observing from the inside.

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I think it's a much more
inclusive way of teaching

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if we can bring in
people with disabilities

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to talk about their own
experiences with the students.

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Instead of us just
showing slides and saying,

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these are the terms
that you should

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use when you're talking to
people with disabilities.

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It means so much more
coming from the people

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with disabilities themselves.

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In terms of how we set up
the students and the clients

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and coordinated that
interaction-- so let

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me start right
from the beginning.

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We meet with the clients.

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Once we know we've
selected them,

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I believe we selected
about 15 clients

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at the start of the class.

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And we told them,
there is a potential

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that you will get to work
with students this semester,

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and this is the
expectation, that you

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are able to give two to
three hours each week

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to meet with our students
from this date to this date.

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Then we went to our
students and gave them

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a whole list of the clients.

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And we didn't
describe the clients

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in too much detail other than
some potential challenges

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that they had that students
might want to work on.

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Then we let the students
decide for themselves

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which clients they were
interested in working with.

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Based on their skill sets,
and based on their interests,

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we meshed up students
with the clients.

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And so at the end
of it, we actually

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only had 11 student teams and
so 11 clients that were matched.

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So we had to tell the remaining
four clients, I'm sorry,

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you were not matched
for this semester,

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but we really appreciate
your availability.

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So right after we finished
that matching, we basically

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sent an email to the clients and
the students, introduced them,

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told them this is how you
can contact each other.

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And then for the very
first client meeting

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for the students, their mentors
went along with the students

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to just make sure the
interaction went well.

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Something that Seth,
Professor Teller, established

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in the class probably
from the first year or so,

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was the student client contract,
where the student will say,

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we are going to work with
you as well as we can,

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these are the expectations
that you can hold us to.

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And then the clients
also have expectations

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that the students
can hold them to,

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and they both sign off for that.

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And it's just a
way of facilitating

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that initial interaction
so that both sides are

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able to talk about what
they will be able to do,

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and what they won't
be able to do.

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And managing those
expectations is a huge part

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of any kind of relationship.

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WILLIAM LI: Yeah, this
contract, and really setting

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the expectations.

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Setting the stage for
students to succeed,

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and clients to really understand
what the process is about

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and how they can be most
valuable to the students

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in terms of giving feedback
and sharing their ideas openly,

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and really knowing
that they're kind

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of an equal partner in the
team's project is really key.

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I think Grace did
a lot of great work

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this year in terms
of the curation part.

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We had a chance to talk to
a lot of potential clients,

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and really figure
out what would be

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the best match for the
expected makeup of students

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in our class.

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As grace mentioned,
clients who are

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adventurous, and
interested in learning,

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and interested in
teaching, and open minded,

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have some assistive
technology idea in mind.

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I think this is a big part, the
front part of the class that

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can be really valuable
to help set it up

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for success for the semester.