- Week 1 (3/29): Introduction
- Week 2 (4/5): Screen readers
- Week 3 (4/12): Screen Readers/Bandwidth and Access
- Week 4 (4/19): Accessible Media
- Week 5 (4/26): More alt text, captions and sound recognition
- Week 6 (5/3): Activism, advocacy and power
- Week 7 (5/10): Corporate accessibility
- Week 8 (5/17): Accessibility’s overlooked spaces
- Week 9 (5/24): Accessibility checking!
- Week 10 (5/31): Final project Check-in
- Finals week: Final presentations.
Week 1 (3/29): Introduction
- Introduction to Accessibility Technology
- Learning Goals Overview of accessibility and its relationship to computation; Introduction to Disability studies; History of disability rights
Slides Introduction to Course
Slides Introduction to Accessibility
Take-home Exercise You will need to submit the learning goals homework and a canvas discussion on understanding experiences of people with disabilities by next class.
- Guest lecture
- Lecture by Kurt Johnson, Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine on Disability Policy and Law
- Slides Linked handout on canvas
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Reading: Please pick two readings from this Walking While Blind in Manhattan During the Pandemic; Q&A with Jamison Hill; The AmazonBasics Microwave With Alexa Shows How Gimmicks Are Gold; How blind people use iPhones; Talking intersections with race, disability, and police violence; Deaf people face unique challenges as pandemic drags on; and respond to the thread on the Canvas discussion
Prep for Activity 1
Week 2 (4/5): Screen readers
- Readings and other Preparation This is a first introduction to disability and an important starting place through providing a disability studies perspective up front in the class.
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Reading
- Optional: Disability Studies as a source of critical inquiry…
- Optional: Semantics to screen readers
- Optional: Rethinking web accessibility on Windows
- Introduction to screen readers and begin forming teams for homework 1.
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Learning Goals Understand a disability-centered perspective and its impact on designing accessibility technologies, get introduced to screen readers.
- Slides Linked slides on canvas
- Activity 1 presentations
- Learning Goals Understand how people with disabilities currently use accessibility technologies; Exposure to a variety of AT
Week 3 (4/12): Screen Readers/Bandwidth and Access
Readings and other Preparation
- Living Disability Theory: Reflections on Research, Access and Design
- Access Lab - the Switch
- Improving User Experience of Eye Tracking-Based Interfaces
- Optional viewing: Switch Control overview
- Optional viewing: One thumb to rule them all
- Introduction to Switch Access
- Learning Goals Introduction to switch controls and building interfaces for use by people with limited mobility
Slides TBD
Activity2 and HW1 work time.
- Guest lecture
- Lecture by Brett Humphrey, Microsoft on screen readers
- Learning Goals Practical stories on screen reader implementation and use
Week 4 (4/19): Accessible Media
We will learn about best practices to make certain types of media accessible.
- Intro to alt-text and audio description.
- Describe a video (in class) and an image (in class)
Monday Slides Captioning
Readings
- Rescribe: Authoring and Automatically Editing Audio Descriptions (talk)
- Alt text intro (and find an image with alt text on the web) Was it hard to find? Where did you have to go?
- Optional: What is audio description?
- Discussion & in-class activity.
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Learning Goals
- Understanding how to write good alt text
- Differences between image description and UI description
- Understanding video description
- Awareness of where and why alt text is missing on the web
- Homework 1 final presentations.
- Slides to be uploaded by students on canvas
Week 5 (4/26): More alt text, captions and sound recognition
Readings
- Paper: Its complicated: Negotiating Accessibility and (Mis)Representation in Image Descriptions of Race, Gender and Disability
- Video: SoundWatch: Smartwatch-based Deep Learning for Sound Awareness
Optional Readings
- Its complicated: Video
- SoundWatch: Paper
- Vital coronavirus is failing the blind and visually impaired
- Tutorial on machine learning, intro to homework 2, and work time.
- Slides coming soon
- Guest Lecture
- Lecture by Cynthia Bennett
Week 6 (5/3): Activism, advocacy and power
Readings
- Homework 2 check-in
- Lecture We will have office hours with each team with a progress update on their HW2.
- Accessibility work, activism and advocacy
- Slides coming soon
Week 7 (5/10): Corporate accessibility
- Final presentations for homework 2.
- Process Refer to the presentation component of homework 2 spec, coming soon..
- Guest lecture
- Guest lecture by Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer at Microsoft.
- Slides coming soon
Week 8 (5/17): Accessibility’s overlooked spaces
- Final project check-in
- Process Please be prepared to present your project idea for five minutes. The class will discuss and provide feedback on this.
- Accessibility’s overlooked spaces
- Slides coming soon
Week 9 (5/24): Accessibility checking!
- Accessibility testing
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Readings (optional)
- Google Video on Practical Web Accessibility — this video provides a great overview of the Web and how to make web content accessible. Highly recommended as a supplement to what we will cover in class.
- People with Disabilities say this AI is making the web worse for them
- COVID 19 websites violate disability laws
- Screen Recognition: Creating Accessibility Metadata for Mobile Applications from Pixels
- Final project check-in
- Discussion post due Understanding testing and repair for accessibility
- Process Teams present project status for in-class discussion (Class will extend until 9pm on this day).
Week 10 (5/31): Final project Check-in
- No Class – Memorial Day
- Project Email Check-in
- Open office hours
- Will be held during regular lecture timing.
Finals week: Final presentations.
- Final project presentations
- Logistics 6:30 pm to 9 pm on June 9th. Zoom link can be found on Canvas.