Design for Accessibility

Group size: Individual
Released: Wednesday, October 8
Due: Friday, October 17 by 11:55 PM to Moodle

Choice

You may choose to one of two tasks: (1) investigate physical accessibility on campus or, (2) investigate digital accessibility on websites.

The goal of the assignment is to explore how technology impacts the user experience. In this assignment, you may be exploring a different user experience than the one you are used to trying. Exploring personas and user experiences is part of the user-centered design process (a learning outcome of this course), so I encourage you to think critically about your experience throughout HW 4 and how design is affecting that experience.

Overview: Physical Accessibility

Watch this video about a sidewalk accessibility project.

For 24 hours, walk around town/campus only using handicap accessible pathways. No stairs inside (not even tiny steps). No hopping onto curves outside. Use only paved paths and sidewalks.

Create an annotated map (sketching, or using any digital tools you like) with the following information:

At least 2-3 accessible “options.” This can be an entrance to a building, good crosswalk location, powered doors, etc.
At least 2-3 problematic areas that you found. For example, you can’t enter the front of Chambers because of steps. For each problem, create a marker with an appropriate symbol (include an image and a text description).

Your map needs to include at least 5 buildings. For example, you may choose to focus on the academic side of campus and include Chambers, Sloan, Watson, Dana, and Wall. Or you may choose to focus your map on the residential side of campus. You may choose to include a map of all of campus, but keep in mind the busyness of the existing campus map and how your annotations may work with or against the existing marks on the map.

Overview: Digital Accessibility

Navigate to this page from the WebAIM guidelines about keyboard accessibility.

Practice navigating the webpage using only the keyboard. You should use the tab key to jump from link to link (and shift+tab to go in reverse order). Use the up/down arrows to scroll up and down the webpage.

After you have practiced a bit, you should only use the keyboard for the next 6 hours. Exceptions:

You may use your mouse if you are looking up a keyboard shortcut
You may choose to use talk-to-text (also called dictation); however, any edits you make must be through the keyboard.

While you are using the keyboard, take note of what actions are easy or not and what websites seem to be built with accessibility in mind. Take screenshots and notes as you go. After your time using the keyboard, your blog post should include:

At least 2-3 accessible websites. Provide screenshots of you using the website and add annotations to the actions you were trying to perform.
At least 2-3 less accessible websites. Provide screenshots of you using the website and add annotations to the actions you were trying to perform, including why it was challenging/impossible.

You need to review at least 5 websites (split however you want – 2 accessible, 3 inaccessible or vice versa). One of these websites should be the Davidson College website.

Accessibility in Your Blog Posts

Given what you have learned about web accessibility, I will be evaluating your blog post for accessible features:

Physical Accessibility: This means that your map design needs to be accessible to people with varying colorblindness and needs to zoom well. All images need to have captions and alt text.
Digital Accessbility: This means that URLs should be included as hyperlinks and annotations on your screenshots need to accommodate varying colorblindness. All images need to have captions and alt text.

Deliverables (for both)

As always: Your reflections as a Medium blog post. You do not need a demo video. Include your annotated map/screenshots as well as reflections on the accessible and inaccessible examples you found (including images of the problematic examples). Be sure to reflect on the differences in the accessible and inaccessible paths.
- This blog post will be different from the other blog posts you have written.
- I still expect photographic evidence, screenshots, and a genuine reflection of the experience (both positive, negative, and critical).
- Optional: if this experience causes you to notice other inaccessible examples on campus or other inaccessible features on websites (unrelated to keyboard navigation), you are welcome to include those in this reflective blog post. This is optional – I am grading your reflection of the physical accessibility challenge.

Grading

Grading will be based on a variation of the design rubric.