I’ve Been Thinking…

A collection of my [somewhat rambling] thoughts surrounding topics pertaining to UX/UI and/or digital accessibility.

The Intersectionality of Higher Education Professors’ Academic Freedom and Students’ Right to Education

October 18, 2024

TL;DR: There is no easy answer here. Hopefully, I’ll have an update after reaching out to the experts on academic freedom.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that this is a very complex topic with varying points of view and multiple layers to consider. Please note that the following thoughts are based only on my experiences, feelings, and understanding of the various complexities and layers and do not represent those of the institution where I am employed or other higher education institutions and accessibility specialists.

Academic Freedom Defined

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) defines Academic Freedom as “the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in his or her academic field, and to teach or publish findings without interference from political figures, boards or trustees, donors, or other entities… According to AAUP policies, the freedom to teach includes the right of the faculty to select the materials, determine the approach to the subject, make the assignments, and assess student academic performance in teaching activities.”

The AAUP also states that professors “must act ethically in their teaching” in order for these academic freedom policies to be applicable. However, it does not clarify what would or would not count as ‘ethical’ apart from the example of following regulations on human research.

Students’ Rights

Students have the right to equal access and full participation in higher education courses. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides civil rights protections to all individuals with disabilities, specifically prohibiting discrimination by state and local governments, which includes public schools. Educators must make necessary modifications to the academic requirements of a course of study if these requirements have a discriminatory impact on a student with a disability, unless the changes would fundamentally alter the program. Requests for for modifications should be addressed in a timely manner in order to ensure the full and equal access and participation that the student is entitled to.

Other Legalities, Liability, & Responsibility

While it is pretty widely known that an institution can be held liable for inaccessible course materials in higher education courses, fewer people recognize that the professor can also be held liable and face legal action in the event that the student takes the necessary steps to file a complaint.

Frequently it is believed that it is the responsibility of staff such as myself in the campus’s Accessibility Resources or Disability Services office to ensure that materials are made accessible at the time that a student requests them in another format. While it is our responsibility to ensure that the student has equitable access, that does not negate any responsibilities of the professor to be proactive. The campus as a whole has a tendency to wait until inaccessible products become a problem for a student as opposed to putting effort into preventing the possible issues in advance.

I call this ‘fire fighting’ instead of ‘fire prevention’ and there are several problems with this approach. But that’s a whole other topic!

Realistically, it is EVERYONE’S responsibility for ensuring that we are creating environments that are inclusive. We all have a part to play and it is important that we behave collaboratively and empathetically to ensure the best possible outcome.

Varying Values & Ethics

As an accessibility professional, my primary value at play is ensuring equal access and involvement of students with disabilities.

Now, I can’t speak from personal experience as a professor, of course, but I believe that a professor’s primary value at play is ensuring that the material and content is presented in the best possible way to encourage learning and understanding.

There is some overlap here, but I still find myself in situations where faculty choose to utilize products that are inaccessible. Why might this be?

Numbers: Is there any truth to the rumor that instructors are expected to have a certain percentage of their students pass the classes they teach in order to be reassigned to teach said courses in the future? If so, perhaps they feel they need to play the numbers. Statistically speaking, a small percentage of students in their courses work with our office and request accommodations. Even if students might benefit from them, there’s still stigma surrounding the topic, leading many students to forego utilizing our department as a resource.

Time: Many instructors feel that they do not have the time to learn how to make their courses accessible and then implement those practices. If instructors aren’t additionally compensated for doing this work, they often don’t.

Ethically speaking, it doesn’t make sense to me that instructors would utilize a product that they know to be inaccessible, but it happens frequently enough that I have to wonder if there is another ethical perspective that I’m not considering.

Bringing it All Together…

Here’s what we know:

  • Both faculty and students have rights in this situation, but does the implementation of a software that is known to be inaccessible override a professor’s right to academic freedom? Or does a disabled student’s right to education trump a professor’s right to academic freedom? Or, the reverse, does a professor’s right to academic freedom trump a student’s right to education? My brain hurts.

  • Everyone is responsible for ensuring inclusive course environments and content.

  • Faculty often feel that they don’t have the capacity to make these changes. For our campus, I am the only Accessible Technology and Digital Accessibility Specialist. To be frank, that ratio is terrible - and I am not Superwoman (that’d be cool). Truth is - I can do anything, but not everything. My goal is to provide the tools and resources for faculty to improve the accessibility of their course content and assist in cases that are particularly tricky, but there’s only so much I can do.

  • The math isn’t mathing for me when it comes to the ethics. What am I missing here? I recognize that sometimes what is and is not ethical can vary from one person to another, but I can’t think of any ethical reason for using an inaccessible product.

Next Steps

I’ve decided that, unlike usual, writing out my thoughts on this has not helped me make any more sense of it. So I’m going to follow-up with the AAUP and see if we can chat more about how these rights intersect and the best ways to approach the topic in the future.

Should UX accessibility guidelines be considered when creating low fidelity prototypes?

September 20, 2024

TL;DR: Incorporating accessibility principles and guidelines into our lo-fi prototypes would likely lighten the cognitive load for usability testing participants, allowing them to instead focus on aspects of the design and experience that we aren’t aware could be problematic for our end users.

I’m unsure of why this question initially presented itself to me, but somehow I began to consider whether or not accessibility best practices should be incorporated in wireframes and lo-fi prototypes. Things like spacing between elements, text sizes, etc.

As with most topics, I think this could be considered from multiple perspectives.

Historically, I have not considered accessibility in my wireframes and lo-fi prototypes since these are generally not supposed to be super accurate representations, but mostly just to get the general idea of the overall flow and experience of the product.

However, applying accessibility guidelines to lo-fi prototypes could be beneficial during usability testing. Since we want to ensure that our product is accessible to as many users as possible, we should subsequently include persons with disabilities in our usability testing phases. And since we know that we will eventually incorporate these principles, it could be argued that it would be beneficial to include them from the get-go. During my own usability studies, I found that participants would mention these concerns/inconsistencies. I’m left to wonder… if these aspects weren’t problematic, would the participant have the cognitive capabilities to instead focus on other aspects of the user experience and overall design? Reducing the overall cognitive load that it takes to engage in the usability testing process would likely allow the participants to put more energy into assessing other things, giving us new and unknown areas for improvement of our product.