The links on this page will open in new windows. They are not required reading, however I encourage you to look them over and bookmark those you may want to revisit later.
University students are more diverse today than at any point in the past. At some point in your career you may have students or trainees in a online course who will require some kind of accommodation for a disability. Using the methods we are using in this course to layout and design your textual content will address many of the recommendations by disability advocates.
Visual disabilities cover a broad spectrum, and many times students don't report visual issues unless they have a particular kind of visual impairment. Most visual disabilities tend to fall into the following categories:
FYI: An excellent and practical resource to bookmark for accessibility matters online is WebAIM.
But the visual issues that can affect online readers don't end there. Less obvious (but common) things like eye fatigue, dry eye, floaters, presbyopia, myopia, astigmatism can also effect how people read.
If your vision is not perfect, you probably rely on assistive technology — glasses. Students who are completely blind often use an assistive technology called a screen reader.
You will recall when we covered Font Choices and Page Hierarchy in the last module how to know for sure if you are using the correct tool for the job. (e.g., h4 for Heading, p for Paragraph, etc.) Well, that is to insure that screen reading technology can relay the page structure and hierarchy on the page to those who cannot see it. The screen reader will read those identifiers (tags, in HTML lingo) to the unsighted person by announcing each paragraph, heading, list, etc. This technology also reads .docx and .pdf files.
For more about screenreaders see 'How Screen Readers Read Content' on the page titled "Designing for Screenreader Compatability."
Even if you are not permanently blind, you could find yourself in a situation — due to injury or eye surgery — where you might have to rely on the screen reading technology that is built into your computer's operating system. Explore those settings in you computer some time to experience how a blind person may hear the page. It can be eye opening (pun intended).
Color blindness presents another aspect to the visual that we'll cover in more detail further along in this module.
Students who can see, but cannot hear need closed captions or transcripts for video content. Applications like YouTube have made this much easier in recent years.
We aren't making videos in this course, but you may have to copyedit captioning or a transcript at some point and some of the same formatting (paragraphs, lists, etc.) may apply.
Cognitive disorders include several reading disorders. The most common reading disorder you will probably encounter among students, online or not, is dyslexia. We'll spend a good bit of time on that group in this module, so I won't go into detail here. However, remember this —
cognitive disabilities are not the same as intellectual disabilities.
People who are susceptible can have a seizure triggered by viewing blinking or flashing objects on a screen. It can be tempting for an instructor to try to draw students' attention by applying a blinking attribute to text. DON'T. You could cause someone to have a seizure.
You read the required Inclusivity Statement in our syllabus which has a link to the Office of Accessibility Services. In addition, WVU's Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion also has the responsibility of making sure we, as an institution, follow the laws as outlined in the Americans With Disabilities Act. You can see what that entails on this page in their website. https://diversity.wvu.edu/equity-assurance/ada-compliance.
The WCAG 2.1 are guidelines that we follow to make web content accessible. They are quite detailed, as you can see here: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/REC-WCAG21-20180605/.
The Specific Review Standards from Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric, Sixth Edition addresses Accessibility and Usability in General Standard 8.
Three of the six review standards (8.1, 8.2 and 8.3) are required. These address
Another standard that isn't required by QM, but is strongly recommended is providing alternative formats for multimedia content (those captions and transcripts I mentioned earlier). HOWEVER, at WVU this is mandatory as required by our Office of Accessibility Services.