Section 1: Info-Graphic on Accessibility in Higher Education

Section 1: Overview

 Focus

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The purpose of my info-graphic will be to help faculty, staff, instructional designer and web developers within the University of California understand the education and accessibility needs of disabled undergrads within out system. According to a recent study we have 25,000 undergrads in the University of California with some sort of disability. These students are entitled through the American’s with Disabilities Act and 508 to equal access to educational opportunities.

My info-graphic will focus on the online education aspect of accessibility and how to align best practices for web-based accessibility to actual practice. My info-graphic will be broken into 4 sections (the most common disabilities for millennial aged students):

  • Designing web content for students with dyslexia
  • Designing web content for students on the autism spectrum
  • Designing web content for students with ADHD
  • Designing web content for students with physical disabilities
    • Low vision blindness
    • Hearing impairment
    • Motor impairment

The info-graphic will be both printable and also a web based PDF that can be shared and downloaded.

Learning Objectives

After reviewing the info-graphic you should be able to:

  • Describe the best practices for building web-based content for students with dyslexia, autism, ADHD and physical disabilities
  • Identify and summarize the three standards of accessibility ADA, 508 and WCAG 2.0
  • Explain the differences between dyslexia, autism and ADHD
  • Locate resources to help implement accessible web-based content

Audience for Info-Graphic

The University of California (UC) is a large and distributed system. However the Instructional design units communicate regularly. The main audience for the info-graphic will be instructional designer (ID) working for the UC. Most IDs want to make their courseware accessible but lack the time or knowledge to fully implement accessible courseware. I cannot take a heavy-handed approach with them since they have autonomy and I must be respectful of their expertise. I believe that sending a PDF of the best practices for building accessible content will be an interesting and light touch to an issue that can be contentious at times.

After sharing with the 20 or so IDs in the UC system. I would like to distribute this info-graphic more widely to all web developers in the UC system. I do not currently have the power to email every web developer in the UC so this is have to be implemented after the initial rollout to just the IDs. But the long-term goal is the have the info-graphic printed and displayed and every workstation of every web developer here at the UC.

Tools and Technology

To create the info-graphic I will use Adobe Illustrator. I have a background in design but I have not worked in print for a very long time so this might be a challenge to relearn all the techniques to build this info-graphic. I might also use Adobe Photoshop if I would like to add more raster images to the info-graphic.

After the graphic is complete I plan to distribute the document as a PDF using the UC list serve. I might also promote the image to the general public using platforms that young people are on such at Reddit or Imgur. Depending on the reception I might also do a video talking over the info-graphic and post to my Youtube Channel and promote the video on Facebook and other social media.