Document Remediation Tool
A successor to the earlier document tagging proof of concept, focused on helping screen reader users review, structure, and improve accessible documents with greater independence.
Innovation Lab
Ideas Become Prototypes. Prototypes Become Solutions.
The Innovation Lab is the workshop side of Open Door Design. It is where accessibility challenges become experiments, experiments become prototypes, and prototypes become tools that can increase independence.
The Lab is not a product catalog. It is a living space for research, testing, learning, rebuilding, and trying again.
Some ideas are early concepts. Some are active development efforts. Some may become public tools. Others may simply teach us a better way to design.
Available During Development
This site and its projects remain under active development. All current content is available for people to access, test, use, and critique while the work continues.
What the Lab Is For
The Innovation Lab exists because many accessibility barriers are not solved by adding labels to existing visual designs.
Sometimes the entire workflow needs to be reimagined from a screen reader-first perspective.
The Lab explores accessible document workflows, media creation tools, study systems, practice environments, audio-based training, and other ideas that can help people work, learn, create, and participate with greater independence.
Screen Reader First Innovation
Every Lab project begins with the same question.
How would this work if a person could not see the screen?
That question changes the design process. It pushes the work toward clearer structure, better keyboard support, meaningful status feedback, efficient navigation, and workflows that do not depend on sighted interpretation.
When a tool works well for screen reader and keyboard users, it often becomes simpler and more usable for everyone.
Active Lab Projects
Open Door Accessible Assistant
The assistant began as a media-focused workflow application and is evolving into a broader accessibility-first system that accepts plain-language goals and handles provider and workflow complexity behind the scenes.
Its current features represent only an early layer of its potential. New media, document, web, EPUB, and accessibility-support capabilities will be exposed as they become ready for meaningful use and critique.
Accessible Media Workflows
Earlier Accessible Video Suite and audio-description concepts now inform the broader Open Door Accessible Assistant, including keyboard control, non-visual review, captions, transcripts, description, preparation, and export workflows.
Beepball Practice Caller App
An audio training concept for beep baseball practice using randomized calls, stereo cues, caller selection, and accessible mobile interaction.
WCAG Accessible Lab
A practical environment for recognizing accessibility issues, connecting findings to WCAG, writing defects, and understanding user impact.
CPACC Accessible Lab
A study and practice environment designed to support CPACC learning through accessible questions, review modes, plain-language explanations, and screen reader-friendly workflows.
Accessible Carousel Initiative
A public demonstration exploring how carousels can support images, video, links, forms, and interaction without excluding screen reader, keyboard, or mobile assistive technology users.
CPACC Accessible Academy
A comprehensive learning platform covering all five CPACC domains through screen reader-first instruction and professional application.
WCAG Accessible Academy
A practical WCAG 2.2 learning platform combining instruction, testing techniques, remediation strategies, examples, and professional context.
Future Accessibility Research
A place for emerging ideas involving AI, screen reader workflows, document access, accessible media, usability testing, and inclusive interaction models.
Why Prototypes Matter
Prototypes are not failures because they are unfinished.
They are how better questions are discovered.
A prototype can reveal an interaction problem, expose a missing status message, prove that a workflow is too visual, or show that a simpler approach is possible.
In the Innovation Lab, every prototype is a teacher.
Connected to the Academy
The Innovation Lab and the Accessibility Academy are separate spaces, but they are built to strengthen each other.
The Academy teaches accessibility concepts. The Lab tests those concepts through real tools and experiments.
Every Lab project can become a lesson. Every Academy lesson can inspire a better Lab project.
Help Shape the Lab
The strongest accessibility ideas come from people who encounter barriers, test workflows, ask better questions, and are willing to challenge assumptions.
The Innovation Lab welcomes feedback from screen reader users, keyboard users, developers, designers, educators, researchers, athletes, students, accessibility professionals, and organizations.
If you have a barrier to solve, an idea to explore, or a workflow that needs to become more accessible, the Lab is where that conversation can begin.