Students with disabilities as partners: A case study on user testing an accessibility website

Abstract

While partnership is widely encouraged as an approach to advancing the inclusion of disabled postsecondary students, these collaborations are largely taking place between staff offices and failing to meaningfully integrate disabled students as partners. In this case study, we describe the successes and challenges of a pilot project where students and staff with and without disabilities worked together to user test our university’s accessibility website, to which faculty/staff are regularly directed for resources on making their teaching more accessible. We achieved our goal of compiling results into a report for decision-makers in order to advance campus-wide technological accessibility. Instead of primarily treating disabled students as lacking capacities and requiring programmatic intervention to succeed in the university, a partnership approach validates and draws on disabled students’ specific expertise and experience to make institutional change.

Expanding student expertise through a diversification of genres and roles

“…All three models assume that students have expertise to contribute to processes of preparing for, reflecting on, and revising teaching and learning practices (Cook-Sather et al, 2014) based on their experiences as students and on their unique intersections of socio-cultural identities and lived experiences as people in the wider world, which they bring to educational contexts and analyses (Brown et al, 2020;Doktor et al, 2019;Matthews, 2017). While the first model builds expertise in and through pedagogical partnership work, the second and third models build on and apply that expertise in new contexts and expand and nurture connections among partnership programs.…”

From Reporting to Removing Barriers: Toward Transforming Accommodation Culture into Equity Culture

“…When students take on liminal roles-positioned in a kind of in-between space: not enrolled students, but informed as students with particular lived experiences and expertise [12]-they can mobilize their own identities to lead change for equity and inclusion [13]. In relation to disability in particular, rather than accepting individuals as "deficient" and in need of service interventions, a partnership approach "draws on disabled students' expertise to address barriers within the institutional environment" [14].…”

Investigation of COVID-19 Vaccine Information Websites across Europe and Asia Using Automated Accessibility Protocols

“…Generally, there are several techniques or methods to evaluate web accessibility. Four web accessibility evaluation techniques are more popular and effective: automatic evaluation tools [ 24 ], manual evaluation or expert evaluation [ 25 ], user evaluation (those who have disabilities) [ 26 ], and hybrid evaluation (both automatic and manual judgment). The automatic evaluation technique allows the tester to evaluate the website’s accessibility by running the evaluation tools into the browser.…”