Accessibility and Universal Design Flashcards
What is the definition of Universal Design?
“The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”
An environment (or any building, product, or service
in that environment) should be designed to meet the needs of all people who wish to use it. This is not a special requirement, for the benefit of only a minority of the population. It is a fundamental condition of good design. If an environment is accessible, usable, convenient and a pleasure to use, everyone benefits. By considering the diverse needs and abilities of all throughout the design process, universal design creates products, services and environments that meet peoples’ needs. Simply put, universal design is good design.
What are the seven principles of universal design?
Equitable use:
The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities. A website that is designed so that it is accessible to everyone, including people who are blind, employs this principle.
Provide the same means of use for all users: identical whenever possible; equivalent when not.
Avoid segregating or stigmatizing any users.
Provisions for privacy, security, and safety should be equally available to all users.
Make the design appealing to all users.
Flexibility in use:
The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. A museum that allows a visitor to choose to read or listen to a description of the contents of a display case employs this principle.
Provide choice in methods of use.
Accommodate right- or left-handed access.
Facilitate the user’s accuracy and precision.
Provide adaptability to the user’s pace.
Simple and intuitive:
Use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level. Science lab equipment with control buttons that are clear and intuitive employs this principle.
Eliminate unnecessary complexity.
Be consistent with user expectations and intuition.
Accommodate a wide range of literacy and language skills.
Arrange information consistent with its importance.
Provide effective prompting and feedback during and after task completion.
Perceptible information:
The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s sensory abilities. Video captioning employs this principle.
Use different modes (pictorial, verbal, tactile) for redundant presentation of essential information.
Provide adequate contrast between essential information and its surroundings.
Maximize legibility of essential information.
Differentiate elements in ways that can be described (i.e., make it easy to give instructions or directions).
Provide compatibility with a variety of techniques or devices used by people with sensory limitations.
Tolerance for error:
The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. An educational software program that provides guidance when the user makes an inappropriate selection employs this principle.
Arrange elements to minimize hazards and errors: most used elements, most accessible; hazardous elements eliminated, isolated, or shielded.
Provide warnings of hazards and errors.
Provide failsafe features.
Discourage unconscious action in tasks that require vigilance.
Low physical effort:
The design can be used efficiently and comfortably, and with a minimum of fatigue. Doors that open automatically employ this principle.
Allow user to maintain a neutral body position
Use reasonable operating forces.
Minimize repetitive actions.
Minimize sustained physical effort.
Size and space for approach and use:
The design provides appropriate size and space for approach, reach, manipulation, and use, regardless of the user’s body size, posture, or mobility. A science lab with adjustable tables employs this principle.
Provide a clear line of sight to important elements for any seated or standing user.
Make reaching to all components comfortable for any seated or standing user.
Accommodate variations in hand and grip size.
Provide adequate space for the use of assistive devices or personal assistance.
What is universal design for learning and its three principles?
A set of guidelines for designing instruction based on principles of cognitive science, that emphasizes flexibility in the presentation and demonstration of knowledge.
Multiple means of engagement:
For purposeful, motivated learners, stimulate interest and motivation for learning. UDL guidelines under this principle promote the development of curriculum and instruction that includes options for perception; language, expressions, and symbolism; and comprehension.
Instructors should provide options for:
Recruiting learners’ interest
Learners to sustain their efforts
Learners to self-regulate
Multiple means of representation:
For resourceful, knowledgeable learners, present information and content in different ways. UDL guidelines under this principle promote the development of curriculum and instruction that includes options for physical action, expressive skills and fluency, and executive functions.
Instructors should provide options for:
Perception through different modalities - audio, video, text
Language and symbols
Comprehension through the design and presentation of information that builds scaffolds for knowledge.
Multiple means of action and expression:
For strategic, goal-directed learners, differentiate the ways that students can express what they know. UDL guidelines under this principle promote the development of curriculum and instruction that includes options for recruiting interest, sustaining effort and persistence, and self-regulation.
Instructors should provide options for:
Interacting with tools and environments that make learning physically accessible
Learners to express themselves and communicate
Building learners’ executive functions through scaffolding
What is the UDL framework?
The UDL framework guides the design of instructional goals, assessments, methods, and materials that can be customized and adjusted to meet individual needs.
How can UD, UDL, and Accessibility work together?
Provide multiple ways for participants to learn and to demonstrate what they have learned.
Provide multiple ways to engage.
Ensure all technologies, facilities, services, resources, and strategies are accessible to individuals with a wide variety of disabilities.
Does employing universal design eliminate the need for accommodations?
No. There will always be the need for some specific accommodations, such as sign language interpreters for students who are deaf. However, applying universal design concepts in course planning will assure full access to the content for most students and minimize the need for specific accommodations. For example, designing web resources in accessible formats as they are developed means that no re-development is necessary if a student who is blind enrolls in the class. Planning ahead can be less time-consuming in the long run. Letting all students have access to your class notes and assignments on an accessible Web site can eliminate the need for providing materials in alternative formats. See Universal Design for more information on universal design of instruction.
Does selecting a fieldwork location that is wheelchair accessible represent UD or an accommodation?
UD. Selecting fieldwork locations that are wheelchair accessible can eliminate the need for alternative assignments or last minute modifications for some students with mobility impairments.
Does providing a notetaker represent UD or an accommodation?
Accommodation. A notetaker is required by some students with disabilities.
Does making your class notes and outline available electronically represent UD or an accommodation?
UD. This provides greater access to course materials and makes it easier for students who are blind to transcribe information into Braille or use adaptive technology to read the text with speech output software.
Does having a flexible attendance policy represent UD or an accommodation?
Accommodation. This might be an appropriate accommodation for a student with a health impairment. However, an attendance policy that it too flexible for too many people may become misused or problematic.
Does requesting open-captioned videos represent UD or an accommodation?
UD. Open captioning is essentially the same as subtitling. It requires no special equipment. Many students can benefit from open captioning, including students with hearing impairments, learning disabilities, and those for whom English is not their first language.
What are the goals of universal design?
Body Fit:
Accommodating a wide range of body sizes and abilities.
Comfort:
Keeping demands within desirable limits of body function and perception.
Awareness:
Ensuring that critical information for use is easily perceived.
Understanding:
Making methods of operation and use intuitive, clear, and unambiguous.
Wellness:
Contributing to health promotion, avoidance of disease, and protection from hazards.
Social Integration:
Treating all groups with dignity and respect.
Personalization:
Incorporating opportunities for choice and the expression of individual preferences.
Cultural Appropriateness:
Respecting and reinforcing cultural values, and the social and environmental contexts of any design project.
What’s the difference between accessible, universal, and usable design?
Accessible design:
A design process in which the needs of people with disabilities are specifically considered. Accessibility sometimes refers to the characteristic that products, services, and facilities can be independently used by people with a variety of disabilities.
Universal design:
The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.
Usable design:
Creates products that are easy and efficient to use. The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which a specified set of users can achieve a specified set of tasks in a particular environment. Usability engineers test the ease at which users can learn to operate a product and remember how to do so when they return to the product at a later time.
Describe how accessibility benefits people with different types of disabilities.
Accessibility benefits individuals by providing them the means to participate in society, in major life activities such as education and employment and social activities that
are necessary for health and happiness.
Describe how organizations and society benefit from including people with disabilities.
Society benefits from the increased independence of more people, contributions of people with a variety of
abilities and disabilities, as well as cost savings and improvements to the built and digital world that improve access and usability for everyone. Schools, employers, groups and organizations of all types also benefit from the increase in innovation and improvements to problem solving that diversity through inclusion brings.
