Open Content
Written by Michael Ridley

Acting on Accessibility

I don’t have a disability; and that’s challenging for me. Challenging because I am less sensitive to the needs and struggles of those who do. It’s too easy for me to forget about the barriers. I’m a problem.

For years Ontario has had legislation that supports the rights of the disabled for equitable access to services and resources. Much has changed. Many positive steps have been taken. But not enough.

The recent Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) is a valiant and aggressive attempt to address this. By moving from a focus on accommodation to the idea that accessibility should be “mainstream” AODA puts the challenge of access in a new light. The legislation has all kinds of legal requirements, compliance timetables, and even fines and other punitive bits. Those who focus on the low bar of compliance or avoidance of fines have missed the point. Key message: mainstreaming accessible design and delivery is good for all of us.

To date, the culture of accommodation has dominated our thinking about accessibility. Essentially it meant you did something different for those with disabilities. AODA changes that. Accessibility is no longer an afterthought; accessibility is part of the design. Accessibility becomes a way of thinking and acting.

The accommodation paradigm has created some tension in the academy. Is providing accommodation (e.g. more time to write an exam, access to a computer for writing, setting a different assignment entirely) giving students with disabilities an unfair advantage? Is it sanctioned cheating? Some think so. Some resist the “special treatment” being requested by students. But equity does not mean equal. Accommodation was, and is, not about reduced criteria or expectation. Just different. And that is why mainstreaming our thinking about accessibility is so important.

We have some very thoughtful and creative people on campus working on these issues. The Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities Advisory Committee (APDAC) is a campus group comprised of students, faculty, and staff. By taking on more than a mere advisory role, APDAC has effectively advocated for a focus on disability issues both at Guelph and throughout the province. Their initiative to host the now annual Aiming for Accessibility Conference has positioned Guelph as a leader in bringing together this community to develop successful strategies arising from AODA.

With the leadership of Teaching Support Services (TSS), APDAC has promoted Universal Instructional Design (UID). UID has been around for awhile. It is a philosophy and approach that builds accessibility into learning materials and course design. The result is effective learning strategy and accessibility all wrapped together. But it is slow to get traction. We can do better.

The University of Guelph has been a leader in its efforts to enroll and support students with learning disabilities. Through the work of Centre for Students with Disabilities (CSD) and the Library Centre for Students with Disabilities (LCSD), these students are not merely gaining access to university, they are typically thriving when they are here. These are students who, without such support, may have never even considered applying to university.
One clear strategy for accessibility is to create information and communications that can be reused in different media or through different tools. And anything digital is a clear winner. Create a document that can be read by a screen reader, converted into an MP3, or used to create Braille output. Produce video that has captioning. Pay attention to the web standards for accessibility: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (none as daunting as their titles might suggest).

So let’s identify another elephant in the room: designing for accessibility is dumbing down the product. It’s too restrictive. It doesn’t look good. It’s less useful for those without disabilities. Yada yada yada. All true. True, if you are a linear thinker with a limited palette of options and little curiosity to extend your own skills or abilities.

Innovation occurs in that space between creativity and constraint. If striving for accessibility is limiting your creativity perhaps you are beginning to get a sense of what someone with a disability must be feeling much of the time. Get over it. Move on. There is lots of scope and opportunity in accessible design.

My rant here doesn’t let me off the hook. I’m probably no better than you in actually following through on the things I’ve raised here. I do not have a disability. My challenge is different.

Michael Ridley is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Librarian at the University of Guelph. Contact him at mridley@uoguelph.ca or www.uoguelph.ca/cio.

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