Teaching Accessibility Everywhere

Richard E. Ladner

University of Washington

October 23, 2024

Plan

• My teaching of accessibility
• Where to teach accessibility
• Disability and accessibility foundations
• Resources

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My teaching of accessibility

• Part of one lecture
• Full lecture
• Full course

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Part of a Lecture

Introduction to Data Compression

CSE 490 GZ

Winter 2004

Braille

A system for embossing language invented by Louis Braille, a blind man in the 1824.

Example

Original text:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. (224 Characters)

Compressed Braille text: ⠠⠉⠁⠇⠇⠀⠍⠑⠀⠠⠊⠩⠍⠁⠑⠇⠲⠀⠠⠐⠎⠀⠽⠑⠜⠎⠀⠁⠛⠕⠤⠤⠤⠝⠑⠧⠻⠀⠍⠔⠙⠀⠓⠪⠀⠇⠰⠛⠀⠏⠗⠑⠉⠊⠎⠑⠇⠽⠤⠤⠤⠓⠁⠧⠔⠛⠀⠇⠇⠀⠕⠗⠀⠝⠕⠀⠍⠕⠝⠑⠽⠀⠦⠀⠍⠽⠀⠏⠥⠗⠎⠑⠂⠀⠯⠀⠝⠕⠹⠔⠛⠀⠏⠜⠞⠊⠉⠥⠇⠜⠀⠞⠕⠀⠔⠞⠻⠑⠌⠀⠍⠑⠀⠕⠝⠀⠩⠕⠗⠑⠂⠀⠠⠊⠀⠹⠳⠣⠞⠀⠠⠊⠀⠺⠙⠀⠎⠁⠊⠇⠀⠁⠃⠀⠁⠀⠇⠇⠀⠯⠀⠎⠑⠑⠀⠮⠀⠺⠁⠞⠻⠽⠀⠐⠏⠀⠷⠀⠮⠀⠸⠺⠲⠀(183 Characters)

Compression = 183/224 = .82

Why is data compression helpful?

Full Lecture

Automating Tactile Graphics Translation

Computer Vision

CSE 455

2014

Computer Vision

math

text

graphic

Tactile Graphic

Spatial understanding from touch

Translation Process

y

(0,20)

x=15

15

10

5

O

x

5

10

15

20

20

x+y=20

(15,0)

(15,5)

Image of text

Location of text

Pure image

&

&

Text

Braille

⠽

⠐⠣⠼⠚⠂⠃⠚⠐⠜

⠭⠀⠐⠶⠼⠁⠑

⠼⠁⠑

⠼⠁⠚

⠼⠑

⠠⠕

⠭

⠼⠑

⠼⠁⠚

⠼⠁⠑

⠼⠃⠚

⠼⠃⠚

⠭⠐⠖⠽⠀⠐⠶⠀⠼⠃⠚

⠐⠣⠼⠁⠑⠂⠚⠐⠜

⠐⠣⠼⠁⠑⠂⠑⠐⠜

​

Final tactile graphic

Original

Cleaned

What computer vision algorithms are used for transforming digital images to tactile images?

Full Course

Accessibility Capstone

CSE 481H

Winter 2011

Goals of the Accessibility Capstone

• Design, build, and test accessibility applications on the Android platform
• Work in teams
• Consult and test with users
• Present results
• Code in open source repository
• Short paper
• Poster and presentation

Process

1. Background on disability and accessibility
2. Work done in teams
3. Each team has a mentor
4. Weekly review sessions
5. Project proposal - preliminary design
6. Prototype implementation
7. Test with users
8. Project revision based on feedback
9. Final project presentation
1. Paper
2. Poster
3. Presentation

Project Criteria

• Doable in one quarter
• Accessibility
• Target group can use it
• Usability
• Easy to learn
• Easy to use
• Impact
• Makes a difference

Example Projects from 2010-2011

2010

• EZ-Tasker - Daily task trainer and scheduler
• LinkUp! - Find people and places nearby
• LocalEyes - Find where you are, what direction you are going, and what points of interest and businesses lie ahead
• *BrailleLearn - Games that encourage learning Braille while having fun for children
• MOCR - Optical character recognition

2011

• *Phone Wand - Navigate routes using orientation and vibration feedback
• Pic2Speech - Custom augmented and alternative communication
• Street Sign Reader
• Who’s Here - Find which friends are around you.
• TapBeats - The sound of gestures
• *Sound Detector - Detecting recognizable sound patterns to alert the user

* Became research projects

Where to teach accessibility?

Teaching Accessible Computing

edited by Alannah Oleson, Amy J. Ko, Richard Ladner

1st edition

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Chapters

• Introduction to CS (CS0)

by Paula Gabbert, Richard E. Ladner

• Introductory Programming (CS1) �by Anne Spencer Ross
• Data Structures

by Catherine M. Baker, Yasmine N. Elglaly, Kristen Shinohara

• Web Development

by Joslenne Peña , Lauren R. Milne

• Software Engineering

by Amy J. Ko

• Human-Computer Interaction

by Annuska Zolyomi

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• Computing and Society

by Elena Kalodner-Martin, Thomas Pickering

• Data Science

by JooYoung Seo, Mine Dogucu

• Graphics

by William Bares

• Security and Privacy

by Vivian Genaro Motti

• Robotics

by Elaine Schaertl Short

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

by Jeffrey P. Bigham

• Computer Vision

by Richard E. Ladner

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Foundations Chapters

• Foundations: Teaching Inclusively

by Jennifer Mankoff, Kelly Avery Mack

• Foundations: Disability & Accessibility (Coming soon)�by Richard E. Ladner, Stephanie Ludi

Disability and Accessibility Foundations

Selected Disability Data

• 1.3 Billion people in the world (15%)
• 42.5 million in US (13%)
• 101 million in European Union (27%)
• 85 million in China (6.2%)

Caveat: Disability definitions vary.

Important: There are a lot of people who have a disability. It is not rare.

Foundations Disability and Accessibility

• Disability Foundations
• Disability Types
• Legal Basis for Disability
• Disability Data
• Models of Disability
• Ableism
• Accessibility Foundations
• Accessibility Affordances
• Accessibility Standards
• Accessibility Laws and Regulations
• Accessibility Research

Models of Disability

• Medical Model: Disability is in the individual’s body that is defective and can hopefully be corrected.�
• Social Model: Disability is in society that is not necessarily accommodating for all kinds of bodies. Making the world accessible will benefit everyone.

Ableism

Ableism is a form of discrimination based on the assumption that being being nondisabled is good and being disabled is bad.

Technoableism

“Technoableism is the belief in the power of technology that considers the elimination of disability a good thing, something we should strive for…. Techoableism is the use of technologies to reassert those biases, often under the guise of empowerment.” Ashley Shew

Accessibility Affordances

Raina 2013

34

35

Access to Computers

• Screen Reader
• Input: Keyboard (no mouse) or touch
• Output: Speech or Braille (no visual output)
• Switch
• Input: binary switch with scanning
• Speech
• Input: Speech
• Eye Tracking
• Input: eye movements control cursor and dwell does selection
• Special devices
• Mouse Keys
• Joystick
• Head mouse
• Mouth stick

36

Availability of Access Tools

• Mac and iOS
• VoiceOver screen reader
• Switch Control
• Voice Control
• Eye Tracking
• Android
• TalkBack screen reader
• Switch Control
• Windows
• Narrator screen reader
• 3rd party screen readers
• JAWS
• NVDA (free)

37

Access Tools are built into MAC, iOS, Android, and Windows

IPAD Accessibility

Key Observation:

Computer applications and websites are not automatically accessible, they have to be designed and programmed to be so.

39

Accessibility Standards

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
• Covers web and mobile apps
• Section 508 Standard and Section 255 Guideline
• Earlier than WCAG
• European Union EN 301 549
• Websites, electronic documents, mobile apps, and other ICT

Disability Laws

• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
• United States
• Rehabilitation Act of 1973
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Canada
• Accessible Canada Act (ACA)
• Europe
• European Accessibility Act (EAA)

New ADA Title II Rule for

Digital Accessibility

April 23, 2024

The Rule

Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities (link)�

• Implements a rule based on Title II of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Applies to state and local government entities including public schools
• Addresses web and mobile accessibility issues
• Level of compliance: WCAG 2.1 AA
• Dates of compliance: Governmental entities larger than 50,000: April 24, 2026, Governmental entities smaller than 50,000: April 27, 2027

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Resources

Kristen Shinohara, Saba Kawas, Amy J. Ko, and Richard E. Ladner. 2018. Who Teaches Accessibility? A Survey of U.S. Computing Faculty. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 197–202.

Who teaches Accessibility

Who

• 14,178 CS and ISchool faculty in US sent the survey in 2018
• 1,867 (13.1%) replied to survey
• 375 (20%) responded “yes” teach accessibility
• 17 reported being an accessibility “expert”

Why not

• 52.3% Not part of core curriculum
• 49.1% Don’t know enough to teach it
• < 15% Any other reason

Should be taught

• 46.7% Agree or strongly agree
• 8.9% Disagree or strongly disagree

Yasmine N. Elglaly, Catherine M. Baker, Anne Spencer Ross, and Kristen Shinohara. 2024. Beyond HCI: The Need for Accessibility Across the CS Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 324–330

ACM / IEEE-CS / AAAI Curriculum 2023

KA = Knowledge Area

Accessibility as a Knowledge Area (From Elglaly et al.)

CS Core

• Basic categories of disabilities.
• Motivations for accessibility.
• Assistive technology.
• Ethics.

KA Core

• Basic models of disability.
• Experiences of disability.
• Ableism and etiquette.
• Intersectionality.
• Use common assistive technology.
• Make a case for accessibility.

Teach Access

• Members
• Industry
• Academia
• Disability Advocacy Organizations
• Faculty Programs

Teach Access Grants Fellowship Program

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• Student Programs

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Student Academy Student Ambassadors

Teach Access Courses

Goal: Make Accessibility a Knowledge Area in Curriculum in 2033

Acknowledgement

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 2122189. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Questions?