John Samuel
John Samuel
Author - "Don't Ask the Blind Guy for Directions"
John Samuel is the author of Don't Ask the Blind Guy for Directions, drawing on his experience as a blind student, husband, dad, and leader to help others navigate barriers in the workplace and beyond.
John previously co-founded and led Ablr, an award-winning company helping organizations become more inclusive by removing barriers keeping people with disabilities from education, healthcare, finance, and employment. As someone who is blind, his mission is personal.
He has since held leadership roles worldwide, including CEO of Aster Cameroon, a telecom venture that built a $45M business expanding internet access across Africa, and an early member of Homestrings, a Diaspora crowdfunding platform.
John holds an MBA from George Washington University and a BS in Accounting from NC State.
Centering the Edge Case: Designing for People Your Data Doesn’t See
Individuals with disabilities are often considered outliers or edge cases in product development, mistakenly represented as a small target user group. This often leads to accessibility not being included in standard UX research and design processes and leading to designers missing key user needs and opportunities for innovation. But what if we designed with differences in mind? Centering edge cases at the heart of design and research processes can result in creating experiences that solve problems not only for specific users with disabilities but for the greater population as well. Ultimately if users with disabilities are included in the process from the beginning as co-creators and experts in their lived experiences teams can create experiences with more impact, value and scale.
