Touching the Future: How Keith Kirkland Is Reimagining Accessibility Through Haptic Innovation
05.16.2025
In a digital world designed primarily for sight and sound, KCAI Product Design Instructor Keith Kirkland is amplifying the sense most overlooked: touch.
Keith Kirkland recently joined The Whole Person podcast to discuss his mission and innovative approach to accessibility and inclusion: Click here to visit the full interview
This excerpt is from the first verse of Haptics (We Have a Vision), a song by Keith Kirkland performed during the SXSW Pitch Awards in 2023. The performance—Keith’s first ever—served as a creative company update for WearWorks, the startup he co-founded that develops haptic technology for non-visual navigation. Through the song, he shared the mission, progress, and vision behind the company in a powerful and unconventional way.
Haptics (We Have a Vision) Lyrics
“Seeing is believing, yeah, most went to vision. Second was sound, which is pretty far distant.
For a hundred years, money only spent on two senses… isn’t that senseless?
That is senseless. Here's my two cents: If vision is king, then touch is in prison."
"Patriarch of all the senses is sight—who really made that decision?
No one with limited vision. None of the 285 million.
And what about hearing? 460 million folks with limited hearing."
"Digital’s so sight-sound driven that it left a billion on the wrong side of the digital divide with virtually no pot to p*** in.
The future is touch. That's our mission.
I am haptics—touch with the weight and intention of dramatically making a difference.
You need to listen. We have a vision.”
“No one’s reading my research papers,” he joked. “But maybe they’ll listen to a song.”
An engineer, fashion designer, and pioneer in haptic technology, Keith Kirkland is on a mission to reshape how we experience the world—one vibration at a time. His journey has taken him from the fashion houses of Calvin Klein and Coach to the cutting-edge classrooms of the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI), where he now serves as a Product Design Professor and the Leonard Pryor Fellow.
At KCAI, he bridges art, accessibility, and innovation through the framework of IDEAS: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Sustainability, and chairs the IDEAS Council, helping lead efforts to embed these values into the institution’s culture and curriculum.
Keith Kirkland recently joined The Whole Person podcast to discuss his mission and innovative approach to accessibility and inclusion: Click here to visit the full interview
From Catwalks to Code
Kirkland's career began in high fashion, but environmental concerns prompted a pivot. Blending his design sensibility with mechanical engineering, he entered the realm of wearable technology. The turning point? A desire to teach Kung Fu through touch.
“I thought, what if you could teach movement not through watching, but by feeling?” he said in the recent podcast interview. That question launched him into haptics—the science of communicating through touch.
He co-founded a startup that developed Wayband, a wearable navigation device for the blind. It uses subtle vibrations to guide users without visual or audio cues, offering a non-invasive alternative to screen-based directions. One of the most compelling demonstrations came when a blind runner independently navigated the first 15 miles of the NYC Marathon using Wayband.
“It was basically taking a game of hot and cold and turning it into a tactile experience,” Kirkland explained.
Tech for the Margins, Benefits for the Mainstream
Though Wayband was initially designed for people who are blind, Kirkland quickly discovered its broader appeal. “The minute we started working with blind users, sighted people began asking, ‘Can I use this too?’”
That’s the ethos behind his work: Designing for the margins makes life better for everyone in the middle.
This principle drives his latest venture—a gamified physical therapy tool that uses haptic feedback to aid recovery. It’s informed by user data, accessibility research, and community feedback, including a survey now collecting input from people who’ve experienced physical or occupational therapy.
Kirkland resists the notion that accessibility is merely a charitable effort. With one in five people globally living with a disability, he sees inclusive design as smart business.
“You can do good and get good,” he said. “That’s not just goodwill—it’s smart business.”
Redefining Education Through Inclusion
At KCAI, Kirkland is crafting the next generation of inclusive designers. He chairs the IDEAS Council, facilitating conversations across faculty, students, and administration. His undergraduate haptics course—one of the few offered in the country—is intentionally open to students from all majors, from sculpture to ceramics.
“Most artists are already working tactilely,” he explained. “Why not introduce them to the digital side of touch?”
Department enrollment has nearly doubled, as some students begin to see haptics not just as a tech niche, but as a creative tool with social impact.
He also led a collaboration with the Nelson-Atkins Museum to make visual art more accessible to visitors with visual impairments. The project involves creating tactile versions of traditional 2D artwork, allowing guests to “feel” the art in ways beyond visual appreciation.
Listening, Not Just Designing
Kirkland’s work is grounded in humility and iteration. He openly acknowledges that when he co-founded his haptics company, he had never met a blind person. His team quickly changed that, partnering with organizations like Perkins School for the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind.
“The best thing you can do is ask questions—and actually listen,” he said. He references The Mom Test, a book about asking unbiased questions, as a guide for building truly inclusive products.
A friend once told him: “I don’t need information delivered in the same way. But I do need access to the same information.” That insight has become central to his design philosophy.
Building the Midwest’s Accessibility Hub
Kirkland sees Kansas City as uniquely poised to lead in accessibility innovation. “Kansas City can become the example of accessibility for the Midwest,” he says, pointing to urban initiatives like the South Loop Project that are integrating affordability, infrastructure, and disability access.
Through his work, Kirkland is helping designers, companies, and communities recognize what many have overlooked: touch is powerful, intuitive, and untapped. And when design starts with those on the margins, the result is a better world for everyone.
“If you’ve never had the experience, you don’t know the problems exist,” he reminds his students. “Entrepreneurship is about serving people. If you’re not serving someone, you’re not running a business—you’ve got a really expensive hobby.”
Visit Keith’s full discussion with The Whole Person podcast by clicking here.
To stay up to date on Keith’s current research and projects visit this link.