Innovation shaped by lived experience.
Access Insights connects technology creators with communities of people with disabilities and older adults, turning lived experience into insight that leads to better products, stronger adoption, and larger markets.
Our Purpose
Lived experience is one of the most powerful sources of innovation.
Technology shapes how people live, work, and participate in society.
Yet the people who navigate the most complex environments, adapting technology every day to meet their needs, are rarely involved in designing it.
At Access Insights, we believe people with disabilities and older adults should be included as collaborators from the beginning, because their lived experience reveals opportunities, friction points, and design insights that traditional product development often misses.
When these communities help shape what gets built, products become more intuitive, more resilient, and more valuable to a broader market.
Our purpose is to bring innovators and communities together so the next generation of technology works better in the real world.
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1.3 billion people globally live with a significant disability.
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16 percent of the world's population are people with disabilities, the largest minority group.
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13 trillion dollars in spending power is held by people with disabilities and their networks.
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70 percent of assistive technologies are abandoned within the first year of use.
How We Work
Every engagement places people with disabilities and older adults at the center of the process as collaborators who shape what gets built and how.
Our Living Labs model embeds research inside real community environments, allowing product teams to observe how technology integrates into everyday life.
What We Deliver
Access Insights helps organizations build products that succeed in real-world environments.
Through our Living Labs model, teams gain direct access to diverse participants, structured research engagements, and community-based settings that reveal how technology fits into everyday life.
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Lived Experience Advisory
Rapid insight sessions with real participants in authentic community settings. Fast, credible direction for product teams exploring new concepts or product decisions.
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Co-Design & Usability Sprints
Multi-session programs where participants collaborate directly with product teams, validating usability and identifying friction early in development.
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Longitudinal In-Setting Pilots
Extended pilots embedded inside residential and community environments, tracking adoption and real-world integration over time.
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Annual Research Retainers
Priority Living Labs access bundled with multiple engagements across the year, designed for teams running ongoing research programs.
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Academic Research Partnerships
Sponsored research and grant-funded studies with full IRB support, real-world participant access, and translational research infrastructure.
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Co-Development Spaces
Opt-in community environments where residents collaborate from the start, shaping problem selection, design direction, and outcomes.
Our Team
Practitioners.
Advocates. Builders.
Our team includes disability rights pioneers, accessibility researchers, technologists, and designers who share a belief that the most meaningful innovation begins with lived experience.
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Darryl Adams
Founder
AI and accessibility strategist focused on inclusive innovation and real world impact. Darryl helps organizations turn emerging technologies into practical solutions that improve how people live and work.
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Lex Frieden
Senior Advisor
Chief architect of the ADA and a founder of the independent living movement; five decades shaping U.S. and international disability policy.
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Richard Beckwith
Research Fellow
Long career doing research in support of design – Areas: disability, education, and aging; Technologies: UX, AI (esp. NLP), and sensing.
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Becky Chierichetti
Design Research Lead
UX researcher exploring AI, mixed reality, and accessibility at the boundary of physical and digital worlds.
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Marco Beltman
Research Fellow, Sensory Technology
Principal engineer with a PhD in acoustics, 39 patents, and a volunteer raft guide opening rivers to people of all abilities.
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Pete Denman
Interaction Design Lead
Designer who rebuilt Stephen Hawking’s communication system, a wheelchair user channeling lived experience into inclusive design.
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Susan Faulkner
Research Director
User experience researcher and leader with over 30 years of experience delivering high-impact results focused on accessibility.
The people behind the work
Seven people.
One rare convergence.
Genuine expertise in accessibility is not common. Expertise at this depth — research scientists, policy architects, principal engineers, and senior UX leaders who have each spent decades at the center of the field — is rarer still. To find seven of them working in concert is nearly unheard of.
Together, the Access Insights team holds more than 60 patents, has delivered over 1,200 lectures and keynote addresses on four continents, and has authored more than 167 peer-reviewed publications. Their work shaped the laws millions rely on, the tools billions use, and the standards that define what responsible, inclusive technology looks like.
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60+
patents held across acoustic engineering, augmented reality, and AI systems
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1,200+
lectures and keynote addresses delivered — from the White House to the United Nations
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167+
peer-reviewed publications spanning disability policy, HCI, acoustics, and ethnography
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200+ yrs
of combined work that directly shaped federal disability law and global accessibility standards
Partner with us
Build technology that truly works
in the real world.
If you design products for people, your work touches the lives of people with disabilities and older adults.
Working alongside these communities leads to deeper insight, stronger adoption, and more inclusive innovation.
Access Insights helps organizations build with the people their technology is meant to serve.
Let's start the conversation.
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Headquarters
Portland, Oregon