Creating Freedom Movements #MoreJusticeMoreJoy
Digital Accessibility & Justice Agenda + Slides ●
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What is Digital Accessibility? ○ Accessible, Universal, & Usable Design ○ Moving Beyond Universal Design Crip Ritual & Digital Access ○ #ShittyAltText — Alex Haagard ■ Alt Text & Image Descriptions ○ Digital Access & the Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) ■ A People’s Guide to AI Contemporary Movements ○ Internet as a Human Right ○ Guerilla Open Access ○ Alt Text for Palestine & Crips for E-Sims Design Justice (Principles from Design Justice Network)
What is Digital Accessibility? Digital Accessibility is defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as “means that “websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them.” But the assistive technologies (technology that allows people to use and interact with websites. eg. screen reader) only work if we create content to be accessible. This might include our language, color scheme, layout, and structure, assistive technologies, or access supports, and more!”
International Standards of Design Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust (POUR) The W3C uses the acronym POUR to highlight their standards for Digital Accessibility, naming that Digital Content & Products should be Perceivable, Operable, 1
Understandable, and Robust. Perceivable can be understood to mean that people should be able to perceive your content through at least one of their senses. Operable means that people can use interactive elements, no matter how they are accessing your content. Understandable emphasizes predictability & consistency, sometimes referred to as ‘learnability’: people should be able to understand your content, what it means, and how to use it! Robust seeks to make use of ‘best’ practices, this can broadly be understood as emphasizing that people should be able to use them on any device or with any type of assistive technology. Below are some examples of how POUR standards may look and/or be used, in practice: Perceivable: people can perceive content through at least one of their senses. Blind folks may use a screen reader to interact with web content, particularly media such as images. Operable: people can use interactive elements, no matter how they are interacting with the content. A person who can’t use their hands should be able to click buttons using diction software. Understandable: people should be able to understand what the content means and how to use it. It should predictable and consistent! People using assistive technology should be able to identify various links and understand what happens when they click them. Robust: people should be able to use them on any device or with any type of assistive technology, makes use of better (‘best’) practices. This seeks to ensure that anyone, on any device, or using any assistive tech, is able to use and interact with your website (or other digital content). Learn more about POUR, including specific digital accessibility guidelines, here. NOTE: The language of ‘best’ practices can have certain implications, ones that often marginalize people within design. For the purposes of this workshop, we will use the language of ‘better’ practices (introduced by SamKelly) to speak about knowledge & tools for and around Digital Accessibility and Digital Access, more broadly.
Accessible, Universal, Usable Design Accessible Design is a design process in which the needs of disabled people are specifically considered. Accessibility sometimes refers to the characteristic that products, services, and facilities can be independently used by various disabled people. 2
Accessibility as a design concern has a long history, but public discourse and awareness of ‘accessibility’ increased significantly with the passage of legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandated that public facilities and services be fully accessible to people with disabilities. In 1998, an amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was passed. The amendment mandated that the Access Board develop accessibility standards for software, hardware, websites, videos, and other information technology. Although these standards apply directly to the development, procurement, modification, and use of information technology of U.S. federal agencies, many states, educational institutions, and other entities have adopted them as one way to meet their ADA obligations. The Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium has also developed guidelines and resources for designing accessible web pages. Learn more here! NOTE: The Social Model of Disability may be useful in further understanding how design can be a tool of both inclusion and exclusion, outside of dominant narratives around disability & access.
Universal Design is a broader concept that is defined by The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University as "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." Sidewalks with curb cuts and doors that automatically open when a person moves near them are examples of universally designed products. They benefit disabled people, parents with baby strollers, delivery workers, and others. Human characteristics considered in universal designs may include age, gender, stature, race/ethnicity, culture, native language and learning preference. In the case of Information Technology, products that are universally designed are accessible to and usable by people with a wide variety of characteristics, including different types of disabilities. These products are often designed to eliminate or minimize the need for assistive technologies. At the same time, they are compatible with common assistive hardware and software devices. For more information about applications of universal design, consult DO-IT's Applications of Universal Design and/or read about the 7 Principles of Universal Design from the Universal Design Living Laboratory. Both
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Accessible & Universal Design seek to address the needs of users beyond those considered “typical” or the ‘average’ user.
Usable Design is serves to create products that are easy and efficient to use. Usability has been defined by the International Organization for Standardization as 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. Unfortunately, disabled people are often missing in usability testing. Therefore, many products that perform well in usability tests are not accessible to disabled people. However, we can see an increase in Accessible and Universal Design frameworks informing usability testing, and being highlighted by usability professionals. For example, accessibility is now a topic on high-profile Usability websites such as usability.gov and Usability First. Usable Design shares some key goals with Accessible & Universal Design: designers in all three disciplines seek to create product features that are easily discovered and operated by the user. Usability engineers are concerned with aspects of the user experience, that include: ● Learnability: can users easily learn how to operate the product, and can they remember how to perform tasks when they return to the product the next time? ● Consistency: are product features clearly and consistently labeled? ● Efficiency & Effectiveness: can users perform tasks with a minimal amount of effort and achieve their goals successfully?
Beyond Universal Design While the terms Accessible, Universal, and Usable Design are increasingly part of the study of design, they have failed to ensure or create access for a vast majority of people. Despite its name, Universal Design (UD) continues to exclude millions, by falsely suggesting one approach can or even should serve the needs of everyone. Universal Design sounds promising in theory, but has failed to materialize as a meaningful solution in practice, underlining the harms of a “one 4
size fits all” approach. This has led designers to develop various methodologies & frameworks beyond UD, including Inclusive Design and Equitable Design. Learn more about the limits of Universal Design: Why Universal Design is not a Good Fit.
What is Design? Design is a discipline of study and practice focused on the interaction between a person — a ‘user’— and the man-made environment, taking into account aesthetic, functional, contextual, cultural and societal considerations. As a formalized discipline, design is a modern construct. definition via What is Design?, International Council of Design (ICoD)
To better understand various methodologies of design, we must first understand design. Learn more about Design, Designers, and Designing or Design History. The International Council of Design Is a global network of “independent Member organizations that share common issues, commitments and standards. Members create a unified voice for the global design community and drive a high level dialogue on the leading role design plays in society, culture and the economy. ICoD is the world’s largest representative of professional designer entities.” They have a number of publicly available toolkits & resources, including the International Indigenous Design Charter.
International Indigenous Design Charter The International Indigenous Design Charter (IIDC) is a living document for the best practice protocols when working with Indigenous knowledge and material in commercial design practice. The International Indigenous Design Charter expands on the Australian Indigenous Design Charter—Communication Design. The International Indigenous Design Charter takes into consideration the needs of the diverse design communities and cultures globally. Co-authored by Dr Russell Kennedy and Dr Meghan Kelly from Deakin University and developed in collaboration with the Deakin University, Institute of Koorie Education (IKE), Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria (IADV) and the Management and Executive 5
Board of the Design Institute of Australia (DIA) in consultation with Australian and international community representatives. Learn more here + download.
Crip Ritual & Digital Access In early 2022, Rads attended an exhibit in the Doris McCarthy Gallery at the UTSC Campus titled Crip Ritual. This exhibit featured a number of works from disabled artists and sought to honor various forms of Crip Ritual, defined as “the things that disabled people do to create new possibilities and realities.” This exhibit explored five general categories of Crip Ritual: ● ● ● ● ●
Rituals of managing the normate’s perception of difference Rituals of access Rituals of care / self-care Rituals of activism Rituals of joy and celebration
#ShittyAltText — Alex Haagard This work, which Haagard initially introduced on the social media platform Instagram, highlights the pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated alternative text (also known as “image descriptions”). While AI accessibility represents a potentially-generative approach to accessibility, it also takes the burden off of content creators to produce meaningful image descriptions, thus negating an analysis of the “access labor” (Hickman) involved in producing access. Shitty Alt Text thus invites conversations about the crip rituals of calling out inaccessibility and negotiating better relations between content creators and observers. Haagaard’s work here, initiated on social media platforms, foregrounds the ways in which hashtag activism is a #CripRitual. The series includes automated alt text renditions of several highly recognizable works from European Art History. __ #ShittyAltText is one of the featured works in the Crip Ritual exhibit. The information and images in the featured slides are pulled from the Crip Ritual archive of this work and serve as a powerful
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example of the limits of AI in creating meaningful access. Can machines offer meaningful translation of images? Should they? View on slides 9 & 10 or online.
Alt Text & Image Descriptions We also spoke about both Alt Text and Image Descriptions. While related, these are actually two distinct things and may be used in different ways or for different purposes. Alt Text (alternative text) is a brief textual explanation of an image, used in the coding of digital graphics online and in digital files; alt text is typically not visible on websites unless the image does not appear. People who use screen readers typically access images and other visual content by being read out the Alt Text of the specific digital media. Image Description is a detailed explanation of an image that provides textual access to visual content; most often used for digital graphics online and in digital files; sometimes placed in alt text to provide access to more complete information. Video descriptions do similar things, but for videos. Both of these are distinct from captions: a brief explanation that provides further information about an image; these do not need to focus on visual components and can be supplemental to any image. All of these may work differently on various platforms. For websites, much of Alt Text & Image Descriptions are put in by users. On Twitter, Alt Text (when present) is visible by tapping a little button labeled “ALT”, which has led to some people using this to share ‘secret’ or ‘surprise’ messages, rather than using it to describe the image (which is often a large arrow pointing to the Alt Text button, labeled “click here”. Using alt text incorrectly — or not including it at all — can have very real consequences. As demonstrated by Haagard’s work, AI generated alt text doesn’t always fill the gap. Alt Text describes an image on a page, yes. But it specifically also helps visually impaired people understand what the image shows, helps search engine bots understand image contents, and appears on a page when the image fails to load. Learn more in “Alt Text: What Is It & Why It Matters for Accessibility & SEO” which covers, what alt text is & why it’s important, how to write alt text (‘better’ practices), examples, as well as how to find & fix missing alt text. We return to this under Contemporary Movements with 7
#AltTextPalestine. Learn more about writing alt text and helpful image descriptions, with various considerations, here. You can also learn more about Image Descriptions (with more discussion on IDs, Alt Text, and captions) from the American Anthropological Association's Guidelines for Creating Image Descriptions. While Haaggard's work cautions against AI to replace human labor, several co-heart members shared their own experiences of and with AI, specifically its role in creating digital access. We explored what AI already does look like in practice, as well as some collective dreaming about how this may develop in the future.
Digital Access & The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial Intelligence is increasingly part of digital conversations and spaces, sometimes positioned as an incredible access support, and others named as a form of racist data or surveillance, with very real consequences. But what is Artificial Intelligence? “Pointing to exactly what counts as AI and where it is being used is a surprisingly hard thing to do. This is because many examples of AI aren’t about the creation of entirely new things. Instead, they are about adding AI to existing things. Adding AI can speed up a process, eliminate the need for humans to do something, or make a system more efficient.” — AI in Action, The Peoples Guide to AI We explored various forms of AI as well as questions for reflection. To help inform & guide our exploration of AI & Digital Access, we used The Peoples Guide to AI by Mimi Onuoha and Mother Cyborg, published by Allied Media Projects. Learn more here!
Contemporary Movements for Digital Access The Internet as a Human Right While it is not legislated or practiced as such, access to the internet is recognized as a human right by organizations all around the world, including the United Nations. It is impossible to have meaningful conversations around Digital Accessibility without speaking about access to digital spaces. Who has it? Who gives it? Who chooses? What do people have access to, and how? And when we do have access to the internet, do we have the tools and knowledge to access what we need? Aaron Swartz said “Everybody gets to speak on the internet. It’s a matter of who gets heard.” Noting the use of the 8
internet for digital surveillance, as well as the realities of the carceral web — what does valuing the internet as a human right look like? How do we get there? We also spoke about internet shut downs as a tool of fascist & colonial governments, to suppress information or rebellion, to isolate people, and otherwise weaponized as a tool of harm. India proclaims itself to be the world’s largest democracy, and yet has had the highest number of governmental internet shut downs in recent years: used to suppress anti-caste organizing and movements, the Farmers Protests, Kashmiri Independence efforts, and far more. We see this echoed globally, perhaps most recently and recognizably through the censorship of Palestinian individuals and pro-Palestinian education, advocacy, and activism.
Guerilla Open Access Manifesto Written by many digital access activists but published by Aaron Swartz in 2008 in Eramo, Italy. He speaks about Guerilla Open Access, advocating for the liberation of information — noting it as a form of power that is routinely denied to many of us. This powerful, rousing call seeks to end the private theft of public knowledge and ends with a question: Will you join us? Read the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto in full, here. Topic Flag for Workshop Recording: Death, Suicide, State Violence. Apologies, no topic flag or content warning was given in the recording. When the slide with this manifesto pops up, there is conversation around death by suicide as well as state violence and/or murder through criminalization, court, and other carceral systems. After sharing the text of the Manifesto, we briefly spoke about a DOJ claim filed against Aaron Swartz for downloading PDFs en mass from the MIT libraries, and Swartz’s decision to end his life.
Alt Text Palestine Folks may have seen the hashtags #AltTextPalestine or #AltTextForPalestine on various digital platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, and more! Questions & Information below are from the compiled #AltTextPalestine Toolkit, available here! (sharable IG post)
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What is Alt Text Palestine? #AltTextPalestine is an online, grassroots organizing campaign on Twitter created by disability activists to make information about the genocide in Palestine more accessible. This initially started with adding alternative text, or “alt text,” to describe images coming out of Gaza. However, it has expanded to include other forms of accessibility, including video transcripts, video descriptions, and adding closed captioning to videos.
Why does #AltTextPalestine matter? One billion people around the world have a disability, and when images and videos aren’t accessible, many disabled people can’t access them. When images don’t have image descriptions, people who are blind or have low vision don’t know what’s in the image. Without captions, people who are Deaf or hard of hearing aren’t able to know what a video says. This means that disabled people don’t have the same access to information and have a harder time learning about what’s going on, whether that’s through videos and images out of Gaza, infographics, or posters about organizing and protest activities. However, there are many reasons why people may not make their content accessible. People may not know about accessibility best practices. People in Gaza are facing communications blackouts and a loss of fuel, so they might not have time to add accessibility information. And many of the videos and images coming out of Gaza are extremely traumatic. People who are directly impacted by what’s going on in Palestine, either because they reside there or have family or friends there, may be retraumatized by having to describe those images to make them accessible.
Can we go beyond #AltTextPalestine? All content needs to be made accessible. While #AltTextPalestine is focused on Palestine, you should make images and videos accessible whenever you can. Whether that’s about other conflicts like the genocide in Sudan, or about things completely unrelated to conflict, we all have the opportunity to make the world more accessible.
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Crips for E-Sims for Gaza This is a collaboration between Jane Shi, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Alice Wong. Disabled people around the world are raising funds to get as many eSims as we can into Gaza. See full crowdfund description at Disability Visibility, view the Financial Accountability Doc. Campaign is on Chuffed but the page has info on how to donate via PayPal and other means for those outside of the United States. Sharable IG post for the campaign here. You can learn more about E-Sims for Gaza at gazaesims.com
Share & Donate to the Crips for E-Sims for Gaza campaign on Chuffed!
Design Justice Network & Principles There are many contemporary design movements that seek to create digital content using better practices that allow for meaningful & true digital access. Design Justice Network (DJN) is a home for people who are committed to embodying and practicing the Design Justice Network Principles. We read through each of the Principles before delving into a deeper discussion on Digital Access & Justice, informed by all of these resources and everyone’s individual expertise through lived experience, many of us through years of being online or in digital spaces!
Design & Design Justice Design mediates so much of our realities and has tremendous impact on our lives, yet very few of us participate in design processes. In particular, the people who are most adversely affected by design decisions — about visual culture, new technologies, the planning of our communities, or the structure of our political and economic systems — tend to have the least influence on those decisions and how they are made. Design Justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face. via Design Justice Network
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Design As Protest Collective SamKelly uplifted Design As Protest (DAP Collective), a node of the Design Justice Network. Check out their Anti-Racism Design Resources, their Datasets, and Other Resources! __
Resources & Materials This is primarily compiled version of the resources listed above and/or shared in the workshop. Please feel free to reach out with additional resources, happy to add them here! Workshop Slides What is Digital Accessibility? ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
International Standards for Digital Accessibility — POUR Intro to Web Accessibility & Accessible Design DO-IT's Applications of Universal Design 7 Principles of Universal Design Accessible, Universal, & Usable Design Usability / Usable Design Usability First
What is Design? ● ● ● ●
What is Design? Design, Designers, and Designing Design’s Evolving Role (Design History) International Indigenous Design Charter
All resources in the above section were sourced from the International Council of Design (ICoD). Crip Ritual & Digital Access ● #ShittyAltText by Alex Haagard ● Crip Ritual (exhibit website) 12
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Alt Text: What Is It & Why It Matters for Accessibility & SEO Writing Helpful Alt Text & Image Descriptions (Harvard) Guidelines for Creating Image Descriptions (AAA) The Peoples Guide to AI (PDF)
Contemporary Movements The Internet as a Human Right Guerilla Open Access Manifesto Alt Text Palestine Toolkit Crips for E-Sims for Gaza ( joint fundraising campaign) Gaza E-Sims (website, info to purchase & send e-sims directly, above is fundraising donated to these efforts) ● Design Justice Principles ● ● ● ● ●
Organizations & Other Resources ● Design Justice Network ○ Resources ○ Get Involved! ○ DJN Care Pod ● Design As Protest — DJN Node ○ Anti-Racism Design Resources ○ Datasets ○ Other Resources
Suggested Citation: Gupta, R. (2024) Digital Access & Justice: Chronically Online for Collective Liberation. [Syllabus]. Creating Freedom Movements, 23-24 Cohort Workshop Highlights. Share on Instagram + Connect with Creating Freedom Movements!
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