Accessible Design

1
Accessible Design

• Meeting the Needs of Students with Disabilities

2
Stacy Smith

• Adaptive Technology Specialist
• Disability Support Services
• Kansas State University
• stacylee_at_ksu.edu
• www.ksu.edu/dss

3
Presentation Goals

1. Provide background on accessibility for students
   with disabilities
2. Discuss how students access eLearning content,
   and how you can experience this on your own
   computer
3. Show sample strategies for creating accessible
   course content

4
What is meant by Accessibility?
5
Accessibility defined

• A term used to describe the relative ease or
  difficulty in reaching a waterfall.
• --www.world-waterfalls.com/glossary.php

6
Accessibility defined

• In the age of information technology,
  accessibility refers to the possibility for
  everyone, regardless of physical or technological
  readiness, such as people with disabilities, to
  access and use technology and information
  products.
• www.remedy.com/customers/dev_community/UserExperie
  nce/glossary.htm

7
Universal Design

• Universal Design is the design of products and
  environments to be usable by all people, to the
  greatest extent possible, without the need for
  adaptation or specialized design.

Seven Principles
8
Principles of Universal Design

• Equitable Use
• The design is useful and marketable to people
  with diverse abilities

9
Principles of Universal Design

• Perceptible Information
• The design communicates necessary information
  effectively to the user, regardless of ambient
  conditions or the users sensory abilities.

10
Applying principles of Universal Design

• Course Development Universal Design
• Universal Access
• Universal Access Accessible Design

11
Accessible Design defined

• With respect to eLearning, Accessible Design
  refers to the planning, development and
  implementation of courses to be inherently
  accessible to students with a wide range of
  abilities, including students with disabilities.

12
Why consider accessibility?

• Federal Law mandates equal access to
  education, employment, communication, technology,
  and other resources for persons with disabilities.

13
Disability law

• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
• Prohibits discrimination on the basis of
  disability
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments
  of 1973
• Ensures that Federally funded institutions such
  as Universities provide equal access to students
  with disabilities
• Section 508 of the the Rehabilitation Act
  Amendments of 1998
• Requires electronic and information technology to
  be accessible to persons with disabilities

14
Legal conclusions for education

• Universities must provide equal access to
  educational opportunities for otherwise qualified
  students.
• An otherwise qualified student meets the
  academic and technical standards requisite to
  admission or participation.

15
When should courses be accessible?

• The Department of Education, Office of Civil
  Rights states that accessibility must be
  considered at the beginning of course
  development.
• Ad-hoc measures taken once the student enrolls
  are not enough.
• The course-taking experience must be as similar
  as possible for all students.

16
The bottom line, legally

• Accessibility is the right thing to do.
• Entities that accept Federal funds must meet
  Federal regulations.
• All States accept Federal funding.

17
Bonus points

• Accessibility translates into usability
• Usability benefits all students
• English as a Second Language
• Taps a variety of learning styles

• Usability benefits instructors
• Flexible courses and happier students
• Content can be more easily repurposed
• Usability is marketable

• Better courses better reputation
• Content deliverable using emergent technology,
  such as handheld devices

18
Accessible design benefits
Students
Instructors
Institutions
19
What has to be accessible?

1. Course management software (also called learning
   management software)
2. Web pages that support the course
3. All course content, such as presentations,
   documents, pdfs, graphics, images, video, etc.

20
Providing accessible eLearning . . .

• How do I do that?

21
The good news

• K-State Online is quite accessible
• Navigation
• Email and message boards
• Variety of file types supported
• Does not mean that every feature is accessible!
• Axio team interested in accessibility
• Request input, program that, repeat
• Variety of tools already exist to assist with
  accessibility
• Most of you arent responsible for Axio/K-State
  Online development

22
Instructors responsible for

• Web Pages

• Course Content

23
The bad news?

• Cant use all these cool tools?
• My course has to be boring and plain?
• This will take a lot of work and effort?
• The university has to spend lots of ?

24
The bad news?

• Cant use all these cool tools?
• My course has to be boring and plain?
• This will take a lot of work and effort?
• The university has to spend lots of ?

25
Use what you want . . .

• . . . But plan for accessibility. Considering
  accessibility in delivering eLearning hinges on
  preparation. What have you done, as an
  instructor, to prepare for the eventuality of a
  student with a disability enrolling in your
  course?

26
Planning for accessibility

• Remember that courses must take accessibility
  into account from the beginning
• Learn how students with disabilities access
  eLearning content
• Learn the standards or learn where to find good
  advice

27
How do students access eLearning?

• Text-to-Speech screen readers
• visual, cognitive, learning impairments
• Screen enlargement
• visual impairments
• Speech-to-Text or voice recognition
• mobility, cognitive, learning impairments
• Sign Language Interpreters
• hearing impairments
• Transcripts
• valuable to all

28
Put yourself in your students shoes

• Disable images using your web browser
• Do you see alt text?
• Does the page convey information?
• Can you navigate effectively?

• Navigate using the keyboard
• Do you navigate to important links first?
• Can you access all links and information?
• Common file types/components?
• Listen to your documents using text-to speech
• Bandage your fingers and participate in
  text-based chat
• Close your eyes and listen to a visual lecture
  with visual aids

29
Screen readers how do they work?

• Beneficial to students with visual, mobility, and
  cognitive impairments
• Technology relies on
• Coded document structure
• Headings, body text, creation order of elements
• Problems with frames, improperly used tables,
  matching questions
• Cues, such as periods and commas
• Instructs screen reader to pause helps with
  pacing
• Problems with online test questions that dont
  use punctuation

30
Free adaptive technology to try

• Built-in accessibility
• Adobe Reader
• MicroSoft Office reader
• Language bar for Office
• Mozilla FireFox
• Developer toolbar allows user to turn off images,
  CSS, linearize tables, etc
• FireVox extension reads page content
• ReadPlease
• Web validation tools
• W3C Validator http//validator.w3.org/
• Cynthia Says http//www.icdri.org/test_your_site
  _now.htm
• WAVE from WebAIM http//www.wave.webaim.org/inde
  x.jsp

31
Practical application
32
1 Accommodation

• Extended time on exams
• KSOL allows instructors to grant a timed
  exception to students

33
1 Word processor MicroSoft Word

• Use styles for formatting
• Format ? Styles and Formatting
• Marks up document with header and body styles
  can be navigated by screen reader
• Translates well to HTML
• Saving the file
• Save as Web Page, Filtered most accessible
• HTML universally accessible
• Filtered avoids much extraneous code
• Offer at least two options .doc, .rtf, .txt
• Many, but not all, students will have Word
• .txt universal but loses formatting

34
1 Presentation method PowerPoint

• Make good design choices
• Slide background (cool may not be readable)
• Font choice (once again, cool may not be
  readable)
• Sufficient but not too much contrast between
  background and text
• Slides are cheap. Use multiple slides rather
  than cramming everything onto one
• Use images only when they add or reinforce
  meaning
• Provide alt text for all images, graphs, etc

35
Poor design choices

• Clutter things that dont convey necessary
  meaning
• Information overload too much information on
  one page
• Unnecessary conservation some people load their
  slides with lots of text because they think
  PowerPoint slides are expensive and they cant
  use as many as theyd like. As a result the text
  gets smaller and smaller and the slide looks like
  its nothing but textunless youve been clever
  like me and youve put cool images of Santa on
  the page.

36
My title is here

• My first bullet is here
• My second bullet is here
• My third bullet is here
• My fourth bullet is here
• My fifth bullet is here
• Arent rainbows pretty?

37
Just because you CAN . . .

• Doesnt mean you SHOULD.

38
Saving accessible PowerPoint

• Making PowerPoint accessible for free
• Dont use PowerPoint.
• Student must have full version of PowerPoint or
  PowerPoint plug-in to view. JAWS, most popular
  screen reader, doesnt work well with plug-ins
• Saving as Web page loses Alt text and uses Frames
  for page layout. Reading order may be off.
• Making PowerPoint accessible for real
• Best LecShare
• Fully accessible in one document format many
  options
• Better Illinois Accessibility Wizard
• Creates multiple documents
• Good Adobe PDF, other software
• Not good for screen readers

39
For all file types simple accommodations
benefit many

• Creating a video?
• Script it. Your presentation will be better (no
  ums)
• Record without an audience (no dead space during
  questions)
• Transcript can be repurposed for captions
• Scanning documents?
• Make sure to use Optical Character Recognition
  (OCR) to convert images into text.
• Using images, graphs, charts?
• Provide alternate text, whether its a word
  processing file, web page, .pdf, PowerPoint, etc

40
I cant plan for everythingcan I?

• Include a statement in your syllabus encouraging
  students with disabilities to disclose
• Exercise your flexibility and creativity
• Offer alternative assignments if necessary
• Rely on the expertise of others

41
Accessible design benefits everyone

• Students with disabilities
• Students with undocumented disabilities
• Students with different learning styles
• Non-native speakers (ESL)
• People using older, slower technology
• People using the smaller, portable technology
• Benefits instructors, too!

42
Instructors benefit . . .

• Well-organized, clean, and flexible courses
• Improved student participation and feedback
• Increased retention of students
• Favorable student evaluations

43
Everyone wins

• Questions?