Portfolio

Welcome to my portfolio! I’m currently pursuing a PhD in User Experience and Accessibility, at the University of Maryland, College Park, and advised by the ever-cheerful Dr. Jonathan Lazar.

I recently finished an internship with Adobe as a research intern (May 2025 – May 2026), with Dr. Rajiv Jain as my mentor.

I’m a researcher, developer and designer by trade! Below are some of my projects that are public. I can be reached at abhinavk at umd dot edu.


Software Applications


There are two apps I have collaboratively designed and developed in the area of data visualization.


HotShots 2.0

A webpage containing a tennis court with simulated strokeplay and statistics.


A web-based tool to visualize shot-by-shot strokeplay from tennis match data.

Collaborated with Arvind Srinivasan and Dr. Niklas Elmqvist, and presented at IEEE VIS ’22 conference.

Topics: Data Visualization, User Interviews, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Lit Review, Figma, JavaScript, Svelte, React, D3.js

Prototype
Poster
Summary


HotShots

A webpage describing tennis player performance with radar charts.


A dashboard to analyze tennis player performance, targeted at tennis analysts and fans. Developed with Arvind Srinivasan and Dr. Niklas Elmqvist.

Topics: Data Visualization, User Interviews, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Lit Review, Figma, JavaScript, Svelte, D3.js

Design
Prototype


Scientific Writing


I’ve collaborated with several experts in the area of Human-Computer Interaction, Data Science and Accessibility. Some of my publications are below:

  • Born-Accessible Design: Moving from Theory to Developing a Pragmatic Methodological Framework.
    J. Lazar, R. Wood, A. Kannan, J. H. Feng, G. W. Tigwell, M. A. Jawili, A. Siu, & R. Jain.
    Interacting with Computers. 2026. [DOI]

  • ColorA11Y: Enhancing Creative Design Workflows with Just-in-Time Color Accessibility Recommendations.
    A. Siu, R. Jain, A. Kannan, J. Echevarria, M. Jawili, Y. S. Prasad, R. Treitman, G. Tigwell, & J. Lazar.
    ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2026). To appear. 2026.

  • An Opportunity to Use AI to Support Content Creators in Creating Born-Accessible Documents.
    J. Lazar, A. Kannan, G. Tigwell, R. Jain, M. Jawili, Y. S. Prasad, A. Siu, and R. Treitman.
    Beyond Tech Fixes: Towards an AI Future Where Disability Justice Thrives. Springer: London. 2025. [DOI]

  • HotShots: Visualizing Stroke-by-Stroke Tennis Data.
    A. Srinivasan, A. Kannan, N. Elmqvist.
    In IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics (VIS) 2022 Posters. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. 2022. [Poster | Summary PDFs]


ACM XRDS magazine cover on technology and accessibility, with representative users of accessibility. Articles include "Improving Digital Accessibility", "Designing for all with Color Universal Design", and "Trust begins at home: How Korean seniors enter AI systems".

In 2025, I served as guest editor for ACM XRDS — a quarterly student magazine. I collaborated with the amazing Denise Doig, Frank Schotanus, and many more in the awesome editorial team!

Experts from across the globe — Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea and USA — wrote perspectives on Technology and Accessibility. Two of my articles are below.

  • Improving Digital Accessibility: From Awareness to Implementation.
    A. Kannan.
    XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 32(1), 7–8. 2025. [DOI | PDF]
  • An Interview with Dr. Venkatesh Potluri: Non-visual Interfaces and Beyond.
    A. Kannan, & V. Potluri.
    XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 32(1), 22–29. 2025. [DOI | PDF]


The whole magazine is openly accessible, but if you’d like a free physical copy, send me an email!


Evaluations in Usability & Accessibility


In the Fall of 2021, I evaluated the website of Pixar — an animated motion picture company — for its usability and accessibility. Being a huge fan of their work, I felt it fitting to analyze their website deeper!

The findings below are based on my learnings from INST 631 HCI Fundamentals, at the University of Maryland.



Robots


EnviroCopter


EnviroCopter is an autonomous tricopter created almost entirely from scratch, with parts fabricated at Berkeley’s CITRIS Invention Lab. These were built primarily using 3D printing and laser cutting, and developed in collaboration with Chris Myers.

Flight Tests


Conversational Agents (Public-Facing)


During my time at Avaamo — an Intel-backed conversational AI startup — I contributed to the development of several conversational agents for voice and web interfaces. A couple of notable ones are below:

  • Franklin Templeton India
    A financial services assistant for Franklin’s Indian end-user market. Contributed between Jan 2020 – Oct 2020.
  • Wasl Properties, UAE
    A property management conversational service for customers in the Dubai area. Contributed between Feb 2020 – Oct 2020.