Elaine OLeary

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Universal Design and e-accessibility
AIT
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Overview

• What is Universal Design?
• Who does it concern?
• What is e-accessibility/Design for-All?
• What are the Benefits of Universal Design-
  specifically for AIT?
• Opportunities to Design for-All in AIT
• Implications of inaccessible design practices
• What can I do to foster the development of
  Accessible Design?
• How do I know if something is Accessibly
  Designed?
• Useful Resources
• Examples

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Universal design or inclusive design is an
approach to the design of products, services and
environments to be as usable as possible by as
many people as possible regardless of age,
ability or situation. It links directly to the
political concept of an inclusive society and its
importance has been recognised by governments,
business and industry.
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Who does accessibility concern?

• Accessibility problems concern specifically
  Persons with disabilities and older People, but
  also anybody in specific environmental or social
  situations. Solutions to overcome these issues
  are therefore very wide and can be grouped in 2
  categories
• Mainstreaming Accessibility in goods services,
  in particular through Design for All.
• Developing up-to-date Assistive Technologies.

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e-Accessibility is about the integration of all
users into the Information Society, i.e. older
people, people with disabilities and also people
placed in impaired environments. This will only
come about as a result of designing mainstream
products and services to be accessible by as
broad a range of users as possible. This
approach is termed "Design for All"
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The Benefits of promoting e-accessibility for AIT?

• Increased consumer base for AIT products and
  services
• Increased retention and progression of students
  with disabilities as access to information is
  improved
• The high cost of retrofits and the increasing
  number of people with impairments means it would
  be wise to consider their needs from the outset.-
  e.g.
• Increased Efficiency in the use of I.T. for AIT
  Staff -e.g.
• Reduction in the duplication of workloads- e.g.
• Increasing legislation, regulation and public
  procurement policies require systems to be
  accessible

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Opportunities to Design for-All in AIT and beyond

• The Institutes Corporate Identity.
• E-learning- Lecture/Learning materials uploaded
  to Moodle
• Design of lecture materials- use of appropriate
  colours, backgrounds, fonts, language usage etc
• Internal communications- e-mail, banner, plasma
  screens, text messages etcuse of multi-modal
  communications.
• Forms- HR Forms, direct application forms etc..
• Trans-Institutional file-sharing in the NDLR
• Collaborative Software Development Initiatives-
  such as An Chéims content management systems
• Website development redesign of sites hosted on
  the AIT server.

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Implications of inaccessible design practices

• Legal Actions against AIT for violation of the
  The Disability Act 2005 The EPSEN Act.
• Falling below the target rate for the inclusion
  of people with disabilities
• Bad publicity Lowering of AITs standing in
  terms of the reputation of AIT in relation to
  inclusion
• Inefficient practice in terms of the use of I.T.-
  labour-wasting activities as described earlier.
• Poor retention and progression for students with
  disabilities, especially print impaired SPLD
• Hefty costs incurred for retrofits of software
  and communications devices- web, corporate i.d.
  etc..
• Negative Multiplier Effect in collaborative
  initiatives as the fallout from poor design
  impacts on a wider group of stakeholders and a
  wider audience.

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What can I do?

• Ask questions about e-accessibility!- In the
  purchasing and development of equipment, designs,
  policies, electronic communications and software
  etc
• Include it in the Brief!- of any new tenders for
  design or development of communications and
  software
• Include it in the Appraisal and Review Process!-
  of any design work
• Promote the evaluation of communications design
  in terms of Accessibility in your own area

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Ask Designers/Developers about Compliance of the
products to

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines WAI
• IBM Developer Guidelines for Hardware
  Accessibility

Consider the use of User Testing
Companies like CFIT (part of NCBI) provide user
testing services to test accessibility
Test your own communications
There are several automated checkers that will
check the accessibility of your documents, some
are even built into word. See Resources
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• Resources
• YAWC- This web based facility converts Word
  documents into accessible web pages
  http//www.yawconline.com
•  
• Vischeck- This web site provides a facility to
  check how your images or power point
  presentations will appear to someone who is
  colorblind. http//www.vischeck.com/vischeck/visch
  eckURL.php
•  
• Web Resource for testing GIF files- This web
  based facility checks if a gif file may be
  causing problems for users by flickering 
• http//www.webaccessibile.org/test/check.aspx

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• Evaluating Web accessibility
• http//validator.w3.org/
• This tests your html mark-up for compliance with
  HTML 4 standards, and lists any errors with
  suggestions for possible changes. Compliance with
  HTML 4 verifies the compatibility of web-content
  with all types of browsers, it also verifies that
  the document type and description will ensure
  that search engines will pick the pages up more
  efficiently.
• http//webxact.watchfire.com/
• This tests your document for compliance with
  each of the three levels of web-accessibility-
• W3C WCAG - A Compliance,
• W3C WCAG - AA Compliance
• W3C WCAG - AAA Compliance

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• Word Spell Check Readability Option-
• By setting this option, when you spell check,
  you will be given a readability rating for your
  content.  This will be in a percentage value.
  There will be another rating telling you the
  school grade level of your content. You should
  aim for a score of 60-70 and be around 8th
  grade. Eighth grade is fourth class in primary
  school. This is the optimum level for a general
  audience.
• -to activate
•   Go into a word document
• Go to spell check
• Under options, tick readability check box
• Creating inclusive programmes of study
• http//scips.worc.ac.uk/
• http//www.teachability.strath.ac.uk/

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• Further Resources Information
• IRLDEAN- these are the Irish wing of the
  European EDEAN initiative, which promotes
  e-inclusion.
• The link below leads to a number of excellent
  presentations from a recent e-accessibility event
  specifically aimed at educators.
• http//www.design-for-all.ie/events/eaccessibility
  _day_presentations.htm