Access Designed

Fall 2020 | RHE 330C | Casey Boyle | casey.boyle@utexas.edu | Office Hours: M&T 12-2 & by appt.

Return Key on keyboard but has wheelchair accessibility icon

This course will examine, explore, and exercise techniques for designing accessible digital writing. To accomplish these tasks, students will examine texts that foreground the ethical practices of communication and media through topics such as accessibility, universal design, disability studies, and media theory. We will explore these media practices by locating accessibility in how online communication circulates with and against bodies (digital documents and online sites). In addition to course readings, case studies, and class discussions, the class will exercise accessible concepts by working together to design, develop, and deploy accessibility websites.

In addition to introducing accessibility as a cultural concern, this class will also engage accessibility in a practical sense through an experiential project of building access. We will partner with Knowbility to compete in the Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR). Students will be formed into groups and those groups will receive training from AIR mentors for best practices for accessibility. Groups will design, develop, and deploy an accessible site for a local non-profit, artist, or organization.

One further course note: this course includes activities that can be described as “experiential,” a type of active learning that engages you in your own decision-making about how to conceive, shape, and produce your project. You will do these activities on your own and as part of a team. In both, the goal is to support you in making your own decisions about how to proceed and then ask you to reflect on the trajectory of your project. Did it go as you expected? What was unexpected? What did you learn? What did you learn doesn’t work well?. I will evaluate the process of your doing and learning, not just the product.

Course Goals

To become aware of the history, need, and critical issues concerning accessibility and design;
To acquire practical knowledge for designing accessible writing (slides, captions, alt-text, websites, PDFs, et al.);
To identify ethical issues involved with accessible communication and to apply real world reasoning towards resolving those issues;
To experiment with a range of media technologies that amplify, attenuate, supplement, and estrange our modes of embodiment.

Course Outcomes

read and discuss research concerned with accessibility, technology, and disability;
complete exercises that introduce students to technologies for access;
plan, research, and design accessibility in collaborative teams;
assemble creative and reflective documents into a website.

Required Materials

Sara Hendren, What Can A Body Do?

Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery, A Web for Everyone

Kat Holmes, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design

Adobe Acrobat DC Pro (month-long subscription may be sufficient)

CodePen.io (free account)

Discord (free account)

Recommended texts

Graham Pullin, Design Meets Disability

Aimi Hamraie, Building Access

Assignments

Discussions – 10%

We will participate in a sustained conversation about our readings and assignments throughout the semester. These discussions will take place synchronously (in our weekly Zoom call) but also asynchronously (over Discord throughout the week). Participation will vary, but it is expected that students will contribute some activity in both over the course of 8 of the 12 weeks (that is, students may be “absent” from four weeks of discussion). I will “assign” these as tasks for each of the first 12 weeks and I will grade them as complete/incomplete each week. More on this in our first sessions.

DUE: Weekly

Exercises – 20%

Over the course of the semester, students will complete several exercises whose purpose is to introduce students to accessibility technologies and give students practice in their techniques. These exercises will take place both synchronously and asynchronously. These exercises are meant to be introductory and will be considered “complete” or “incomplete.” Exercises maye include: HTML/CSS learning modules, Formatting Documents, PDF accessibility, Alt-Text, Caption practice, and others as they arise.

DUE: Bi-Weekly

AIR Project – 50%

In conjunction with the AIR Competition hosted by Knowbility, students will work in groups to develop, design, and deploy an accessible site for a local non-profit, organization, or individual. There will be more details about this assignment as the semester proceeds, but we can expect it to include consultations, proposal, design, development, and deployment. Once we understand the contours of that project, we will divide it into component assignments.

DUE: Nov 10

Reflection Site – 20%

The final project will ask students to collect their reflections and accounts of the project and to compose individual (and accessible) websites that describe, explain, and advocate for accessibility. Each site will have multiple media (video, text, image, audio) that then will be made accessible. This project will have three major components: students will propose (10%), design and deploy (10%), and present the final site (10%).

DUE: Dec 5

Schedule (subject to change)

Week One | 09/01 | Introducing Access

Read: Adams, “Disability”; Mills, “Technology”; Williamson, “Access”; Holmes, “Welcome”

Week Two | 09/08 | Mismatch I

Read: Holmes, Mismatch (CH2, CH3)

Watch:HTML Essentials

Review: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WGAC) & Web Accessibility Initiative

EXTRA: AIR NPO Training 09/10 4-5pm

Week Three | 09/15 | Mismatch II

Read: Holmes, Mismatch (CH4, CH7, CH9); Hamraie, “Designing Collective Access”; Slatin, “The Imagination Gap”;

Watch: CSS Essentials

EXTRA: AIR Training 09/17 4-5pm

Week Four | 09/23 | Making Access Visible

Read: Hendren, What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet The Built World (0-100)

EXTRA: AIR Training 09/24 4-5pm

Week Five | 09/29 | Making Access Visible (Again)

Read: Hendren, What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet The Built World (101-200)

EXTRA: AIR Training 10/01 4-5pm

Week Six | 10/06 | Seeing Sounds

Hamraie, Building Access (selections)

Read: Zdenek, [Reading Sounds]: Closed-Captioned Media And Popular Culture (Selections); Reilly, “alt: Accessible Web Design or Token Gesture?”

EXTRA: AIR Training 10/08 4-5pm

Week Seven | 10/13 | Project Access I

Read: Horton and Quesenberry, A Web For Everyone (CH1 & CH2)

Project Work

Week Eight | 10/20 | Project Access II

Read: Horton and Quesenberry, A Web For Everyone (CH3 & CH4)

Project Work

Week Nine | 10/27 |Project Access III

Read: Horton and Quesenberry, A Web For Everyone (CH5 & CH6)

Project Work

Week Ten | 11/03 | Project Access IV

Read: Horton and Quesenberry, A Web For Everyone (CH7)

Project Work

Week Eleven | 11/10 | Project Access V

Read: Horton and Quesenberry, A Web For Everyone (CH8)

Project Work

EXTRA: Project DUE 11/12

Week Twelve | 11/17 | Access Imaginary

Proposal & Conferences

Week Thirteen | 11/24 |Writing Access I

Writing Workshop

Week Fourteen | 12/01 |Writing Access II

Writing Workshop

Week Fifteen | 12/07 | Presenting Accessibly

Presentations