TO ADD: Latte notes

Questions for literature review:

• What is the broad context and relevance of digital accessibility as a topic to learn about society and the digital workplace?
• Where and how is the topic currently taught?
• What challenges and opportunities from the teaching and learning context can we learn from?
• What other disciplines in primary education can we take influence from to be able to teach the new topic of digital accessibility? 

The topic of digital accessibility is rooted in meeting the needs of disabled users in society. The lack of progress of addressing this digitally means that those with disabilities are still facing barriers to being included in the information society (Ref). This therefore touches on aspects of social justice (Ref) and sociopolitical issues (Sonka, 2021). Social justice and attitudes to disability are a core to this topic and education is a way of addressing this to change this and create people into those who can understand the needs of others and advocate. For example studies suggest that understanding the needs of those who use screen reader users was an impactful learning experience (Ref) and working with users helps to construct better meaning and understanding for people with such needs. This study by its very nature of teaching this subject will be challenging and preconceptions to help learners emphasise with people with different needs and potentially change attitudes (Ref).

Attitudes however don’t appear to be the issue, (Ref) explains that people know that digital accessibility is the right thing to do, they just don’t know how to put it into practice to help (Ref) due to lack of education or teaching in the area (Ref), lack of textbooks and resources (Ref) and more simple materials they could understand (Ref). The gap here therefore sits in the pedagogical support for teaching around accessibility. In depth teaching needs a multidisciplinary set of knowledge and skills, such as conceptual understanding of disability, procedural knowledge and technical skills to be able to develop future digital developers and software engineers in higher education or with industry. Lewthwaite, Coverdale and Butler-Rees (2020) explain that the problem lies in the fact that industry have people trained in technical skills and covering the subject from that perspective, whereas academia comes at it from a more holistic view pedagogically but there are not enough people with the technical knowledge to teach that aspect in depth. It is hard to find people with both disability knowledge as well as technical (Ref).

The ‘hero model’ or reliance on someone with the technical skills is an issue, for example Keates (2015) referred to a course no longer being taught because the author moved to the UK. Bohman (2012) also highlighted courses that stopped due to teachers moving on. Relying on specific people or the expertise of one individual is both a barrier to progress (Ref) and not a sustainable model that relies on the initiation and enthusiasm of someone including the topic on the course curriculum (Ref). A more sustainable way is suggested to have a broader and more simple approach to be able to get the key concepts into the curriculum to raise awareness, or build a network of champions who can advocate the underlying principles (Ref) and have easier to adapt material to raise awareness and build it into more disciplines.

Matt May quote

Digital accessibility touches on media, law, disability studies, libraries and digital design (Youngblood, 2012; 2018; Kimura, 2018). Each of these topics offering a unique opportunity to embed an element of digital accessibility awareness.

It has also been highlighted that learners have little awareness of the topic when enrolling on a higher education course, suggesting that earlier intervention is needed for young people to be exposed to the topic (Ref). It has also been suggested that this needs to extend to school age learning to lay the early foundations of the topic (refx3).

The more simple concepts and principles have been deemed successful in the more basic principles such as headings, image alt text, colour contrast and links (Wilson, 2020; 2023; Christopherson, 2022).

The simple principle of descriptive links, for example can take two minutes to learn (Wilson, 2020) and have been deemed one of the most impactful when barriers to having click here instead of a descriptive link (ref). The more basic materials are in demand in both industry and education (Ref) but a present there is no one source of specific training in the basics, most guidance is written around the WCAG guidance and deemed complex to learn (Ref) and challenging for beginners (Ref) to understand and interpret.

Taking the learning back to school age education and laying foundations for this topic addresses the challenge of unlearning (Ref) or retrofitting of skills later in life when routine digital skills and content creation habits are established (unpicked Wilson, 2023).

Similarly with learners entering higher education with no awareness of a topic shows a gap in knowledge that not only means they don’t consider these aspects when building digital content unless specifically told to do so (Ref), they also find it complex and challenging to add accessibility as a bandaid fix later on (Ref). It has already been identified that fixing content later in the process add extra time, effort and cost (Ref), whereas building with accessibility in mind from the offset is a more efficient way to addressing these needs, not an afterthought (ref).

This complex afterthought adds to the perception that accessibility needs to be addressed by experts and therefore someone else’s job or responsibility (Ref). This along with WCAG being deemed complex for beginners, and the regulations specific to websites potentially reinforces such a notion.

In industry however there is concern that to simplify this topic, it has been reduced to a checklist within the web industry. ‘Hassell quote checklist versus meeting needs of disability’

The lens of a technical checklist is a reductionist approach for many to adhere to the guidelines and meet the perceived needs of disabled people. This however has been challenged by (ref) that professionals and those learning about disability accessibility need to step away from the checklist and include the full multidisciplinary approach and aspects of user testing and the need for empathic modelling (Ref) involve real users in the development and testing of digital products (Ref) or learn about assistive technologies to simulate the barriers they face (Ref).

The web accessibility guidelines in government refer to involving disabled users in the process of creating digital services and websites (Ref) and to include them in the testing and development from the start, throughout and before launching beta versions of products (Ref). Studies involving users and empathetic modelling have been held in high regard in learner feedback (Ref) and in some cases courses have been changed to introduce the subject using the empathy lens first, rather than WCAG or legal incentives (Ref).

In one study students in a computing discipline were asked to identify the full range of user needs from the perspective of permanent, temporary and situational disabilities to ascertain how much they understood digital accessibility from a universal design perspective. Results suggested that learners could identify a range of needs but couldn’t necessarily identify the situational needs those with disabilities had, they mainly identified situational impairments of able bodied users. This study highlighted that the lens of disability education needs more focus especially when taught to a technical audience.

For a topic to be in the curriculum there needs to be a demand from industry, especially where the gap of skills or lack of training or knowledge has been acknowledged as a demand from industry (PEAT, 2018; Teach Access, 2022). As (ref) says if industry needed it they would look to education to provide it. However it has been noted that industry, even though there is slow progress in meeting the regulatory guidelines and clear identification of the lack of education and training, these needs have not yet been fully recognised or actioned by industry as an educational curriculum need. The perceived need has not yet caught up.

Currently the focus in education is on web developers, human computer interface courses and IT, yet calls have been made for library professionals, media students and wider subjects like law, ethics and disability studies where the subjects also overlaps and has relevance.

Exploring the topic of digital accessibility from a lens beyond computing and into a lens of being a citizen in a digital first, world (ref) could open up the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the subject. Seeking a wider implementation of knowledge and awareness beyond the digital skillset could be driven by the fact that digital accessibility is everywhere and relevant in all professions where computers or digital information is used and shared. Most job roles see some form of digital content creation such as documents, presentations, video, audio and social media. Calls for learning accessibility for media students has been raised by Youngblood (2013; 2018) and library resources and staff training (Kimura, 2018) and subjects such as law, humanities and ethics (Sonka, 2022).

With this study considering teaching this within schools, it is imperative to locate at what age would be appropriate. Currently the topic of online safety, another subject associated with social responsibility is addressed in key stage 2, so similarly this topic could sit within this timeframe. To confirm the appropriateness of this, and knowing this relates to the disciplines on both digital and the needs of others with disabilities, studies into disability perceptions in children (use 1500 doc - Piaget, Okker, DeBoer).

At this age and level it is likely learners would struggle with WCAG, especially if higher education students struggle with it. The lower hanging fruit of digital skills would be more applicable as well as emphasis on empathy and understanding the needs of others, as per citizenship curriculum also at KS2 (Ref).

To what extent learners in primary school could identify wider needs of those in our digital world would lay the foundations of digital equity.

Familiar inclusive design models such as Microsoft’s infographic on permanent, temporary and situational - comparative study of the one in HE to see what extent younger learners could understand similar.

In terms of digital skills, the most basic principles had impact such as links, colours and alt text and could be easily demonstrated and understood (Ref). More suited would be the ‘low hanging fruit’ that people found more simple to adopt (Ref). These aspects could act as a foundation for what young people could learn, as well as some context of legal requirements and how it fits into industry, future employment and aspects of equality in a digital society. Could studies and successes be replicated or adapted for a school audience? As with keeping it to the more simple principles can teachers learn to teach the foundations of awareness.