Crafting Better Multimedia for the Invisible People All Around Us
Ava settles onto the couch to watch a YouTube Video and enables subtitles — not because fae are deaf, but to comprehend the video better. Only to discover it only offers automatically generated “craptions” full of incorrect words, names, and other distracting inconsistencies with its accompanied audio. Fae is joined by 42 million other Americans whose vast majority of disabilities are invisible (Morgan, 2020). For a more universally accessible web, educators are adjusting how they teach software engineering, user experience design, content writing, and multimedia production.
Most disabilities are hidden beneath the surface
Few initially notice Ava’s neurodivergent cues despite faer clinically diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder, position on the autism spectrum, and aphantasia. These labels combine to convey faer cognitive disabilities, including generalized anxiety requiring medication, being easy to overwhelm, and lacking an eye for mental visualization, respectively. These labels describe faer variations from the neurotypical in the same way that faer transgender label helps to communicate faer differences from cisgender individuals.
Labels demystify otherwise vague struggles while uniting people under similar umbrellas. Community can be found through others like us, leading to deep friendships and chosen family. Those with labels such as autism often find relief in the belonging, the science, and the statistics that they not only aren’t alone but that the disability isn’t even rare. Thus far, Ava has described primarily cognitive invisible disabilities but the concepts apply fully to invisible physical disabilities such as chronic fatigue as well.
“…[This research does] not universalise the experience of impairment, but instead recognises that bodies deemed ‘disabled’ because they do not meet normative standards encounter barriers and ableist practices that are not universally experienced by everyone. [This research] recognises that disability is subjective and shaped by social, political, economic and biological factors, as well as by negative socially dominant views of disability.” (Saltes, 2020)
When we consider invisible disabilities as well, it becomes easier to see the breadth of the affected audience. We’re no longer discussing an app used by someone who doesn’t have a sense or limb, but instead the high likelihood of a close family member or friend who may be burdened by an invisible or partial visible disability. Disabilities of all kinds affect the way the audience receives video, audio, animation, writing and more.
Why it takes passion
Building a more accessible web is about equity. Too often in Ava’s career has fae read forgettable statistics as a reason to care about accessibility. What hits home are stories. What hits home are connections to loved ones in our own lives, as people and as professionals.
It begins with an inner drive to empower people. There are three groups Ava encourages to build a more accessible web: professionals, educators, and students. Let’s start with those who work in the industry.
The builders
Writers, engineers, designers, multimedia producers and more contribute to the vast network of content we refer to as the web. Professionals across mediums collaborate in creating the code, copy, images, audio and video that result in the websites and apps used by the public.
Hierarchical structures exist within organizations to drive forward new features, technologies and custom or user-driven content. It may not be enough that a video producer include subtitles if the media player it is heard through does not support it, or worse — if deadlines are so tight that professionals cut corners on work they may not have felt rewarded for having done previously, if ever. When users add new videos to a web platform whose responsibility is it to create the subtitles: the user, the company who built the platform, or some automated technology taking educated guesses, unaware of the human intention?
“Such work requires close ties between advocacy communities and the industries that support their interests, and is likely to be fraught with contradictions; out of differences and negotiations, however, can come more responsive and responsible ideologies and resultant technologies.” (Ellcessor, 2014)
Within a corporation, the answer to whose responsibility it is to ensure its platform is accessible isn’t easy. Individuals are hired as professionals in their fields to create their very best work. A representation of the mastery of the craft would be ensuring an accessible deliverable. Ideally, these professionals work alongside like-minded colleagues with direct support in the form of sufficient project time and professional development resources from their managers.
Professional development can offer a way to practice unused skills or learn new ones. Technology and courses can offer theory. Conferences and meetups can provide community. Ava speaks at conferences about accessibility for the software development community and to help bridge a gap often felt by professionals in the space.
“We’ve all been told accessibility is important, but rarely do we feel the fruits of the labor directly.” (Wroten, 2018)
In one conference talk Ava gave, the whole team benefited from the work put into building accessible features, which is contrary to the common narrative of it being an ideal to strive for, one that is often skipped or never considered to begin with.
Senior leaders who have mastered their craft and have retained their passion and respect for building an equitable web are priceless in mentoring juniors in their field. True mastery is shown by being able to comprehensibly explain and teach another. When the community is lucky enough, these senior leaders go into teaching part- or full-time.
The mentors
Educators come in many forms, including mentors, colleagues, bloggers, tutors, coding boot camp instructors, university professors, and K-12 teachers. They all have a role to play in sharing knowledge with the next generation of individual contributors. Engaging and then deeply transferring one’s knowledge to another or perhaps an entire group is challenging enough. However, this challenge is increased twice over when you have the responsibility to teach accessibility or to even teach those with disabilities themselves. There’s a unique meta to teaching accessibility where the content itself needs to be accessible to demonstrate its own point. This will also empower those who may need it the most.
Ava decided in late 2022, after a decade of being an individual contributor and mentor to faer work colleagues, to return to university for faer master’s degree. Fae hopes to return to teach as an adjunct professor to share what fae has learned to a new wave of students. Faer experience of seeking a degree fell short when there weren’t many programs that specialized in accessibility. As Ellcessor noted in their text on Industry Lore in 2014, “…there are few degrees, accreditations, or similar indications of expertise in web accessibility.”
How, then, do educators squeeze yet more content to teach into their already overloaded curriculum?
In “Teaching Accessibility to the Masses,” members of Ryerson University identified that there are numerous approaches, with varying degrees of success. It’s a lot to ask educators to integrate accessibility content into their courses. Similarly, training individual contributors as accessibility experts shifts the pressure onto them. One idea that showed promise was putting together a committee with members from “from local businesses, educational institutions, and the public.” This committee was involved early in the process with an integrated feedback loop that would result in updates to course development.
Ryerson University and other sources such as National Science Foundation Grants’ panel “What and How to Teach Accessibility” tend to focus on developing specialized accessibility-specific courses; but what about integrating equity at the very beginning as a part of all core curriculum? Rosmaita argues a greater number of students can be reached earlier while raising awareness of access needs by teaching accessibility directly within introductory courses, through a phrase they and Ava have both used previously: “Accessibility First!”.
It is Ava’s belief that accessibility is not a mere footnote to be taught in an elective class, as a single chapter in a book, or in the workplace if there is extra time. Instead, it deserves to be a core part of educational content: taught early, reinforced often, and backed by committees with standards and metrics of success. Imagine the snowball effect over generations of access aware individuals whose knowledge is built on such strong foundations.
Where to go from here
All of us deserve a more equitable web: professionals, creating better multimedia on a more technologically advanced web; educators, with the passion to teach accessibility early, broadly, and with support; students, with the knowledge and tools that will continue to develop from generation to generation. How do we get there? By loving those around us by empowering them to thrive on a more access-ready web. How can you help build a more equitable online space today?
References:
Elizabeth Ellcessor (2014) <ALT=“Textbooks”>: Web Accessibility Myths as Negotiated Industrial Lore, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 31:5, 448–463, DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2014.919660
Gay, G., Djafarova, N., & Zefi, L. (2017). Teaching accessibility to the masses. Paper presented at the 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3058555.3058563
Ladner, R., Caspi, A., Findlater, L., Gabbert, P., Ko, A., & Krutz, D. (2020). Panel: What and how to teach accessibility. Paper presented at the 639–640. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366966
Morgan, P. (2022, March 20). Invisible disabilities: Break down the barriers. Forbes. Retrieved February 26, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulamorgan/2020/03/20/invisible-disabilities-break-down-the-barriers/?sh=8145bb7fa50e
Natasha Saltes (2022) ‘It’s all about student accessibility. No one ever talks about teacher accessibility’: Examining ableist expectations in academia, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26:7, 674–700, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2020.1712483
Poynter, R. (n.d.). Rikki Poynter. Retrieved February 12, 2023, from http://www.rikkipoynter.com/
Rosmaita, B. (2006). Accessibility now: Teaching accessible computing at the introductory level. Paper presented at the 277–278. https://doi.org/10.1145/1168987.1169053
Wroten, A. G. (2018). Ember Conf 2022. In notist. Retrieved March 6, 2023, from https://noti.st/gaiety/0YtVPZ/a11y-first-and-everyone-wins (Updated from deadname)
