Teaching About Universal Design and Accessibility in Higher Education

Howard Kramer1 and Gian Wild2

1 University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

hkramer@colorado.edu

2 AccessibilityOz, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

gian@accessibilityoz.com

Abstract. The last decade has seen a dramatic shift in the way that the business community has regarded web accessibility; shifting from an attitude of indifference, at best, and at times, hostility, to an approach that is much more proactive with regards to the creation of accessible websites and other electronic information systems used by the public. This change has in large part been due to court rulings that have interpreted the coverage of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) to include digital environments and the actions and policies of the Department of Justice to include websites and other electronic information systems under the scope of the ADA.

This change in outlook has led to an effort by businesses, particularly tech companies, to hire more individuals with accessibility knowledge. This was demonstrated in a 2015 press release by tech firms such as Yahoo, Facebook, Dropbox and LinkedIn stating that they will develop standard language that lets applicants “know that having accessibility knowledge is ‘preferred’ to land a job” [1].

However, this shift in the business community has not been accompanied by an equivalent increase in the teaching of accessibility in college and university coursework. Tech companies have reported that very few recent graduates considered for hire have learned about accessibility in their degree program.

A number of projects, such as Teach Access and Promoting the Integration of Universal Design into University Curricula (UDUC), are working to increase teaching about accessibility and Universal Design into the curricula of post-secondary design, tech and computer science programs.

This paper will talk about why and how you should include accessibility and inclusive design topics in tech, media, design, and computer science courses.

Keywords: Computing education, accessibility, curriculum change

Introduction

Changing Motivations for Making the Web and Electronic Resources Accessible – The Usual Suspects

Individuals who work in accessibility professions, or who have followed the developments occurring in the area or electronic accessibility, are used to hearing the usual arguments for why the web and electronic resources should be made accessible and therefore why these topics should be taught in post-secondary curriculum. In the following section we will discuss the arguments for making electronic resources accessible and then discuss how this relates to the importance of teaching about accessibility.

The Social Case. In other words, it is the right thing to do, for individuals and for society as a whole because it allows individuals with disabilities to more fully participate in society. We hear this rationale in the oft referenced Tim Berners-Lee quote:

The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect. – Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web (1997)

From Steve Krug, usability expert:

The one argument for accessibility that doesn’t get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people’s lives. How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people’s lives just by doing our job a little better? (2005)

The Legal Argument: It’s the Law! At least in the United States, this is one of the top arguments for promoting web and electronic accessibility. As mentioned above, courts have increasingly interpreted that the coverage of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) extends beyond the physical environment to include websites and other electronic resources, including eBooks used in education.

For example, in 2017, a Florida district court ruled that the grocer Winn Dixie had violated the ADA by not making its website accessible. The court also ruled that the $250,000 estimate to retrofit the site for accessibility was not an undue burden for the company [2, 3]. In 2012, following an ADA lawsuit by the National Association for the Deaf, Netflix agree to caption all its shows by 2014 [4].

A 2016 article in the Wall Street Journal reported that over 240 businesses had been sued in federal court for the inaccessibility of their websites since 2015 [5]. The Department of Justice and private plaintiffs have also come to settlements with a number of companies, such as H&R Block, Staples, Safeway, QuikTrip Corporation, Peapod online grocers, Major League Baseball, the American Cancer Society, Charles Schwab, CVS, and Denny’s, not to mention a number of higher education institutions.

Even for cases that are still working their way through the courts, judges are increasingly ruling that the websites of businesses and organizations such as Hobby Lobby, Five Guys and Blick Art Materials fall under the scope of the ADA and cannot be dismissed due to the virtual nature of the web [6].

Although defense attorneys and industry groups for these businesses often describe these suits as “drive-by” or a “legal-fee shakedown” they do seem to have changed the business attitude towards web and other electronic system accessibility [5].

Serving Global and Diverse Markets. Another standard argument for ensuring accessibility is that the nature of commerce is increasingly global. Products are not only marketed to one country or culture, they serve individuals all over the world from different cultures, languages and technology platforms. The more companies design products to be usable and accessible by a wider range of users, including individuals with disabilities, the more marketable and successful they will be overall. In addition, in the U.S. alone, the buying power of persons with disabilities is estimated to be about $175 billion, more than the buying power of tweens (8 to 14 year olds) [7].

Accessibility Benefits Everyone. The final common argument we will present here is that accessibility not only benefits individuals with disabilities but that it benefits everyone. Many products that were initially designed for persons with disabilities are some of the most popular features of both physical and digital environments and products. This includes the ubiquitous curb-cut, speech-recognition, optical character recognition, synthetic speech, the typewriter and a long list of other products.

This sentiment has been argued by Eve Andersson, the head of Google’s accessibility efforts. In a 2016 interview she offered that “inclusive design means more than just hacking an app or product so that people with disabilities can use it. It’s something that benefits literally everyone” [8]. She provided the example of Android apps that follow Google’s contrast guidelines can also allow individuals to use the app in sunlight.

The above arguments for making the web and electronic resources accessible relate, of course, to the argument for teaching about accessibility. If companies, higher education institutions and the public sector need to make their electronic resources accessible, then we need design and technology professionals who have the skills needed to create and maintain systems that are accessible and inclusive in their design.

A New Argument for Teaching about Accessibility

Career Benefits. There is an emerging argument for teaching about accessibility and inclusive design in university curriculum: career and work benefits. Due to the reasons outlined above, there has been a shift in the business and higher education attitude toward electronic accessibility. This change in attitude has led to an effort by businesses, particularly tech companies, and public institutions, to hire more individuals with accessibility knowledge.

However, informal surveys by tech companies reveal that only about 10% of new hires who are recent graduates have any knowledge of accessibility concepts. This demonstrates that although there has been a shift in the business community regarding the importance of accessibility, it has not been accompanied by an equivalent increase in the teaching of accessibility in college and university coursework.

Another indication that including accessibility topics in university curriculum has career benefits are the increasing number of jobs that include accessibility as a required skill, or even a key aspect of a position.

A 2002 study by Koong, Liu and Liu [9] calculated the most sought IT job categories and skills from a search of Monster.com and HotJobs.com. A 2012 study [10] measured in-demand job skills using a survey of IT managers. And a 2008 study gathered data from the Career Center of a regional technology council [11]. None of the studies listed accessibility in their top sought job skills nor, in fact, mentioned accessibility at all. A recent search by this author in Monster.com found the following results for a search on the keywords “ADA,” “WCAG,” “accessibility,” “C++,” and “computer security.”

The results are summarized in the following table.

Table 1. Keyword Search from Monster.com

Key Word Search	Results
ADA	1000+
WCAG	299+
Accessibility	1000+
C++	1000+
Computer security	1000+

Except for “WCAG,” a very specialized accessibility term referring to the international standard for web accessibility, searches on accessibility-related terms turned up similar results to C++ and Computer Security, the keywords that turned up in the top sought job skills from previous studies. Since the results have an upper limit of 1000+, we do not know if C++ occurred at perhaps a total of 10,000 compared to 2,000 for ADA. However, that the accessibility keywords appear at least at a 1000+ rate indicates that there has been an increased demand for accessibility skills for IT hires.

What is the Cause of the Gap between Demand and Supply of Grads with Accessibility Skills?

There are a number of reasons for the gap between demand for accessibility skills and the inclusion of accessibility topics in higher education curricula: one is the delay by colleges and universities in incorporating new skills into the curriculum. Studies have shown that post-secondary IT programs update their curricula every 4 to 5 years [12]. Since the demand for accessibility skills has increased significantly in only the last 4 or 5 years it is not surprising that accessibility topics have not made their way into IT coursework to any noticeable degree.

Another factor is that curriculum standards bodies have added accessibility as a component to model curriculum only recently. For example, the Association of Computer Machinery’s (ACM) curricula models only began to add accessibility topics in 2017 and currently the only curriculum guideline that includes accessibility topics are their 4-year Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Technology [13]. Similarly, ABET has only recently “added accessibility into engineering design accreditation requirements” [14].

Another reason is that faculty themselves lack skills and knowledge in this area. A 2012 survey [15] at the University of Colorado Boulder found that there was not even a shared understanding of the term “Universal Design,” a term closely related to accessibility, among faculty on campus. If faculty are not even sure of the concepts and terms related to accessibility and Universal Design, clearly they lack the deeper knowledge needed to teach specific skills in this area in their courses.

Finally, there is a lack of resources and guidance for including accessibility and Universal Design topics in IT coursework. Although the ACM’s curriculum guidelines offer some broad topic outlines for accessibility content and modules; and offer one model based on a Spanish major in a Computers and Telecommunications, these resources do not go into detail on specific lesson plans, texts or other resources that might be used in a course that addresses accessibility issues.

A recent study by Shinohara, Kawas, Ko and Ladner concluded that the “most critical barriers to teaching accessibility that faculty reported were the absence of clear and discipline-specific accessibility learning objectives and the lack of faculty knowledge about accessibility [14].” They also reported that faculty desired teaching resources for their specific area of study and not simply general accessibility resources and guidelines.

Below, we will talk about the resources developed and planned by projects such as Teach Access and UDUC and other resources that can be used to teach about accessibility and Universal Design.

Topics to Include in IT Courses that Address Accessibility and Universal Design

In this section we will review some key topics to include in a course that focuses on or includes topics on accessibility and Universal Design. A number of the following topics are derived from a curriculum that the first author teaches on Universal Design for Digital Media: Focus on Web Applications. Some of these topics are also included in the model Spanish course mentioned above. This includes the first set of topics mentioned here: Demographics, disability issues and corresponding Assistive Technologies.

Before addressing specific technologies and design and coding skills, it is crucial to have the class understand the rationale for designing with accessibility or Universal Design considerations. Beginning the course with an assignment to research and compare the demographics and disability statistics of two countries is a good starting point for helping students understand the range of abilities, cultures, platforms and other characteristics of the user-base.

Topics to Include in IT Courses that Address Accessibility and Universal Design

Data points to require in the two-country comparison might include the following:

The number of Internet users.

The number of individuals with disabilities.

The number of individuals with vision impairments.

…. with mobility impairments?

…. with hearing impairments?

…. with learning or cognitive disabilities?

Provide age demographic information on each country for today and for about 10 or 15 years from now. In other words, how many individuals in the 55 to 65 age range, in the 45 to 54 range, etc.?

How many users of mobile devices for web access for each country. What is the projected change about 5 or 10 or 15 years from now?

Key points to address following the assignment:

The prevalence of individuals with disabilities in the population (e.g. almost 1 in 5 people, or about 51 million individuals in the U.S. have a disability [7]).

The ageing of the population and the relationship between an ageing society and the percentage of the population with disabilities or functional limitations.

The intersection when designing for different platforms and screen sizes – mobile, desktop, laptop – and designing for individuals with different functional limitations or disabilities.

Disability Categories

Another area to address is the functional limitations caused by specific disabilities.

The following table provides an overview of disability areas and commonly used adaptations and Assistive Technologies for addressing associated functional limitations.

Table 2. Table 3 disability areas, functional limitations, corresponding Assistive Technology and adaptations

Disability & Issues	Adaptation or Assistive Technology
Blindness or Visual Impairment Lack of access to visual information, non-semantic structure (on Web), unlabeled images, finding information and orientation on a screen or webpage Situational Equivalent: viewing smart phone or tablet in bright sunlight; cluttered webpage; low contrast foreground/background	Screen-reader technology (text to speech), high contrast, semantic web structure, adjustable font, keyboard control, alternative text for images
Deafness or Hearing Loss Speech, sounds & multimedia, low volume Situational Equivalent: noisy environment or noise restricted environment	Captioned videos, Real-time captioning, transcripts (for audio-only multimedia), sign-language interpreters
Mobility / Physical Disabilities Inability to use a mouse and/or a standard keyboard, ambulation limitations, lack of hand dexterity Situational Equivalent: driving a vehicle where hands and visual attention are dedicated to other tasks	Large targeting areas (i.e. links and controls on a web page), keyboard control, voice recognition, word completion, head and eye-tracking devices
Cognitive/Learning Poor understanding of the meaning of site elements, finding information on a screen or webpage Situational Equivalent: working on tasks when tired; noisy or distracting environments	Screen-reader technology (text to speech), easier to understand language, article summaries, uncluttered web pages, high contrast, adjustable style and font, semantic web structure

Resources for Learning about disabilities, functional limitations, user needs and Assistive Technology

A Web for Everyone (Text). There are a number of resources, some free, some commercial, available for teaching the above concepts. The book A Web for Everyone: Designing Accessible User Experiences (2014) by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery is a comprehensive book on applying Design Thinking, Universal Design and accessibility concepts to web design. One very useful feature of the book is the use of eight personas that encompass a range of users with disabilities, varying age groups and cultural and technical backgrounds. These personas are used throughout the book to point out how different concepts or techniques would address the needs of the various personas. Each persona includes background information, interests, technology skill level, learning style, use of adaptations and Assistive Technology.

Although the text is not free, all the persona images and two chapters (and part of a third) are available at no cost on the web (see https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/a-web-for-everyone/#excerpts).

Fig. 1. Three of the eight personas from A Web for Everyone

Web Accessibility Initiative Resources. There are also a number of free resources available from the Web Access Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This includes a number of excellent short “perspective” videos (see https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspectives/) demonstrating individuals with disabilities, particular user needs and features of websites that enhance or degrade accessibility. These videos also point out the Universal Design aspects of various accessibility features – that is, how incorporating accessibility features help all users. Screen shots of some of the videos are shown below.

Fig. 2. Perspective videos from WAI

WAI also provides a number of personas, similar to the personas found in A Web for Everyone, but without the persona images (see https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/people-use-web/stories).

Other Resources

Teach Access

Teach Access (teachaccess.org) is a consortium led by Oath (formally Yahoo!), Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Adobe whose mission aims to elevate knowledge and understanding of accessibility in higher education and across key technology disciplines like engineering, research and design. The goal is to increase the accessibility skill level of individuals entering technology and design fields. To address this, Teach Access has developed a tutorial to teach a set of best practices for the disciplines responsible for making mobile apps and websites accessible; worked to include accessibility language in technology job requirements; and provide guest speakers from tech companies for the classroom.

The tutorial can be found at https://teachaccess.github.io/tutorial/ and can be used as a tool for faculty and professionals to learn about accessibility. Additionally, the components of the tutorial can be used as a teaching resource in the classroom. Teach Access also conducts “Faculty Bootcamps” in different regions of the country. These are three-hour hands-on trainings where faculty can learn about the basics and approaches for teaching about accessibility. A schedule of their bootcamps can be found on their website (teachaccess.org). A video-recording of their bootcamp at the Accessing Higher Ground Conference in November 2017 can be streamed at: http://accessinghigherground.org/teach-access-faculty-bootcamp-ahg-2017/ (click on link to video presentation at bottom of page).

Promoting the Integration of Universal Design into University Curricula (UDUC)

UDUC is a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant-funded program that seeks to create and disseminate curricula resources and provide training and forums to promote institutional change at post-secondary institutions nationally in order to increase the quality and number of courses addressing UD in university curricula. In collaboration with the Accessing Higher Ground Conference (AHG), UDUC hosted a Teach Access Faculty Bootcamp in November of last year along with a track of sessions on incorporating accessibility and Universal Design into post-secondary curriculum.

UDUC will be hosting similar activities at the Accessing Higher Ground Conference in 2018. UDUC is also in the process of developing a survey to measure the career and job-finding benefits of accessibility training in IT and technology programs. In addition, it is also developing a resource repository where faculty and accessibility professionals can share and access teaching resources. The repository will be hosted at uduc.org.

In collaboration with AHG, UDUC also has a large library of video-recorded sessions on topics related to electronic accessibility. These videos can be found at http://accessinghigherground.org/archives/. Anyone wishing to access the video resources can contact Howard Kramer at hkramer@colorado.edu. UDUC also seeks faculty to participate in a faculty network of individuals interested in teaching and sharing resources on accessibility topics. If you teach classes that include accessibility topics or Universal Design and are interested in helping to distribute the career benefit survey, please contact the first author at the email above.

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (#1742007019) and support from the University of Colorado Boulder, AHEAD, and Interactive Accessibility.

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This estimate is from 2006 so buying power is likely significantly higher at this time.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) – this is the international standard for web accessibility.

The images from A Web for Everyone are shown under a Creative Commons Attribution License and are available for download at https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/sets/72157638911360206/.

Copyright © 2018 W3C ® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio, Beihang) Usage policies apply. These images can be found at: https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspectives/