In Georgia, a Center for People With Disabilities Doubles as a Google User-Testing Hub

Google and Tommy Hilfiger get feedback from residents on their accessible products

PHOTO: DAVID WEAVER

By: Katie Deighton
Dec. 27, 2020 500 pm ET

When Matthew Thompson graduated from high school in 2010, his parents were apprehensive about his next steps. Matthew has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, an incurable condition that causes progressive weakness in the body, and requires help carrying out daily activities like brushing his teeth. But like any young adult, he wanted some form of independence.

His father, Rick Thompson, set out to find a residential facility for young adults with physical disabilities. He came back empty-handed: Most places he came across catered to seniors or people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

“So I started to scope building one,” he said.

The result is Champions Place, a residence for young people with physical disabilities that doubles as a user-research center for companies developing accessible products. The facility in Johns Creek, Ga., opened in October to its first 14 residents, six years after Mr. Thompson co-founded the nonprofit Champions Community Foundation to begin financing the project.

The space aims to be fully accessible for people with conditions such as spina bifida and cerebral palsy, who often rely on a wheelchair. Alongside providing a shared home for residents, Champions Place aims to be a social hub for members of the Titans, the 80-person strong wheelchair sports group Mr. Thompson created with five other families in 2009.

But he hopes the facility will also serve as an incubator for companies developing adaptive and assistive technologies.

“That part of our mission could positively impact the lives of thousands of people living with disabilities,” Mr. Thompson said.

Testing technology

Some businesses have been shifting research and development budgets into designing with and for people with disabilities, after noticing such work improves both their public image and rate of innovation, said Grace Jun, assistant professor of fashion and inclusive design at Parsons School of Design in New York.

“If you’re working with more people, and you’re expanding your consumer group, you’re naturally innovating your products to be more useful for more people, and therefore more profitable,” she said.

PVH Corp.’s Tommy Hilfiger and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are two of the first companies to supply Champions Place with products in exchange for user feedback.

Fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger, the outfitter of the Titans since 2018, said it has provided residents with bedding and furniture, as well as clothing from its Adaptive line, which has been designed to help people with disabilities dress more easily using features like onehanded zippers, magnetic buttons and adjustable waists. “With adaptive clothing, we understand that dressing needs and challenges continue to change,” said company founder and principal designer Tommy Hilfiger. “So it is important to us to keep putting the consumer at the heart of our process, working directly with the community so we can further innovate our collections based on their feedback.”

Google said it has provided hardware that helps residents control their environment with their voice. Among these is the Nest Hub Max, which residents can command to operate items like blinds and doors. The company also has provided eating utensils designed for people with tremors and limited hand and arm movements, called Liftware and produced by Verily, Alphabet’s life-sciences division.

It is also providing some residents with Jacquard by Google smart jackets, which allo wearers to control some apps on their smartphone by brushing a sensing area woven into the cuff, and others with access to software still in development. A few Champions Place residents are testing Project Euphonia, a Google initiative that aims to train voice recognition technology to understand people whose speech is impaired, said Kyndra

LoCoco, accessibility partner and community programs manager at Google Mr. Thompson said Champions Place hopes to work with more companies looking to test products that help people with physical disabilities become more self-reliant.

Sarah Grace, a 26-year-old resident, said she enjoys trying new products. “We walk the walk so to speak—we know what works and what doesn’t work,” she said. “And getting new products first before anybody else? That’s always a good thing.”

Lacking option

Ms. Grace said she would likely still be living with her parents or staying in a facility for people with intellectual disabilities if she hadn’t found a room at Champions Place. There was also a chance of having to move to a nursing home, she said, as some young people have been forced to do.

Other residences similar to Champions Place are open to people with disabilities looking to live more independently, including the nonprofit apartment complex operator Creative Living Inc. in Columbus, Ohio. But there is in general a dearth of residential options for people with physical disabilities in the U.S., said Heidi Johnson-Wright, an attorney who specializes in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Champions Community Foundation subsidizes roughly 33% of the annual operating expenses of Champions Place, which charges between $1,050 and $1,450 a month depending on a resident’s needs, Mr. Thompson said. A scholarship program funded by the Coca-Cola Foundation provides one-third of its residents with an additional 50% discount; these tenants wouldn’t be able to afford a room at Champions Place without the extra assistance, he added.

Write to Katie Deighton at katie.deighton@wsj.com
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Help us meet our goal of $250,000 to:

• Cover remaining capital cost

• Subsidize operating costs to keep resident's monthly fees affordable.

• Serve the greater Titan community and others with physical disabilities