Accessible Usable U: Talking Points for Working With Friends
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The document discusses the importance of viewing accessibility as a participatory act rather than just an accommodation, emphasizing shared responsibility in creating an accessible institution. It outlines basic skills for implementing accessible measures in everyday workflows, such as proper document structure and the use of alt text, and encourages starting small to foster daily habits. The text also provides strategies for motivating others to incorporate accessibility in their work, highlighting the benefits for both individuals and broader groups.
Accessible Usable U: Talking Points for Working With Friends
- 1. Accessible Usable U Talking points for working with friends
- 2. Talking with instructors, our friends yay! show me how! I’ll wait until it’s requested. meh. These are some of the typical responses we get when we raise the issue of accessibility measures with colleagues.
- 3. We want to shift thinking: accessibility as a participatory act. The goal of Accessible Usable U is to help move minds from thinking of accessibility as an accommodation (something that the Disability Resource Center will take care of upon request) to thinking of accessibility as a contributory, activist act where we all take some personal, daily responsibility for creating an accessible institution.. participatory act
- 4. Who are we talking about when we talk about accessibility?
- 5. Accessibility means that the product or system can be used by people of all abilities and conditions. Sensory Motility CognitiveAffective Bandwidth Age-related
- 6. Accessible measures you’re already doing
- 7. Accessible measures you’re already doing
- 9. Things you’re already doing right
- 10. Basic skills are at the intersection between what developers control and what instructional designers and instructors can control. stuff developers control stuff we can control How did we decide on this set of basic skills? We considered several intersections: things that developers and web designers have to control, such as whether a website includes skip navigation, versus things that are within the control of the everyday University employee.
- 11. Basic skills are all possible in the “everyday” apps we and instructors work in daily. stuff instructional designers do in specialized apps “everyday” apps we all work in
- 12. We feel that the basic skills are things that don’t take too much time and that instructors could reasonably be expected to do. stuff that requires extra skill stuff instructors do
- 13. The basic skills are in the “sweet spot” of a number of factors. Basic skills of accessible communication
- 14. “Basic skills” of accessible communication 1.Headers and document structure 2.Hyperlinks 3.Bullets and lists 4.Color and contrast 5.Video captions 6.Alt text on images “Basic skills” (as a list)
- 15. How will you incorporate these 6 measures into your everyday workflows?
- 16. Integrating accessible measures into your workflow can be difficult. Start small. Celebrate the small wins, the attempts that turn into daily habits. Notice where your communications are improving.
- 17. 3 strategies for helping friends incorporate accessible measures into their workflows
- 18. First, consider your own motivations for adding accessible measures to your workflows. Are you the type who tends to implement changes in your life in small increments? Perhaps useful to think of adding accessible measures like exercises to gradually build muscle. Or are you someone who prefers to change only when presented with a negative consequence? Consequences-as-motivator Preventive measures
- 19. Accessible products and systems can be used by people of all abilities. Usable products and systems help people accomplish their goals efficiently and easily. When talking to friends, you can leverage these affinities by explaining how the accessible measure benefits both “groups” of people (even though we’re all in both “groups”, in some way). For example, structuring documents using well-written headers helps people scan web pages with their eyes or with their ears (if they’re using a screen reader). accessible usable
- 20. Accessible measures also have a cost-benefit for your friends, so appeal to the “me” factor. For example, formatting documents using paragraph styles makes it easier to apply document-level formatting changes later. accessible usable me
- 21. Present accessible-usable measures as part of the workflow. Show them how you personally are incorporating it into your workflows, and tell how it’s benefited you to adopt the new habit. In this video, I explain how and why I incorporate script-writing into my screencast recording workflows, and how this step benefits the whole process.
- 22. Like this resource? It’s called a sliderding! Learn more at z.umn.edu/sliderding
Editor's Notes
- #14: basically, these are BASIC SKILLS OF ACCESSIBLE COMMUNICATION and we believe these basic skills are the shared responsibility not just of those of us who work directly with teaching and learning materials, but of everyone at the university
- #15: what’s the best way to effect change? - start small we identified 6 best practices that we would delicately insist upon with instructors. (or if not insist, then definitely mention each time.) Headers and doc structure Hyperlinks Bullets and lists Color and contrast Alt text Video captions and vowed to adopt them in our daily practice.