First-year medical student Jacob Lowy has moderate-to-severe hearing loss in his right ear. Working together, HITS, ITS, and other units on campus leveraged IT that has transformed his experience—including adding captions to lecture videos and setting up realtime captioning (CART) during lectures. Lowy realizes that when something isn’t visible, it’s not always easy to understand. This often happens… Read More »
Watch this video that showcases a new set of Guiding Principles for Accessibility that ITS published to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy the services it offers to campus.
A new ITS webpage outlines progress to make its workplace more diverse, inclusive, and equitable: Over 450 DEI course completions by 276 staff, a new set of Guiding Principles for Accessibility, and more.
Members of the U-M Accessibility team recently took part in events for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), May 16. The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking, and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) access/inclusion and how it affects not only people with disabilities, but also tech usability for everyone. In recognition of the fact… Read More »
Web accessibility is a key ingredient to successful product development that can make or break many peoples’ experience. The U-M Library Digital Accessibility Team (DAT) helps library teams “bake in” web accessibility from the beginning of their projects and helps coordinate accessibility work across the Library. The Library’s Digital Accessibility Team collaborates primarily with U-M Library partners to… Read More »
ITS staff gave a presentation and demonstrated assistive technology at this event that focused on the impact design decisions have on humanity and society as a whole.
Stereotypes of seniors confused by and struggling with technology might be amusing, but not necessarily accurate, says School of Information researcher Robin Brewer, an SI presidential postdoctoral fellow. Technology isn’t necessarily befuddling for older adults in and of itself, says Brewer. Most of the challenges are because of changes in abilities that make traditional devices and systems tougher for… Read More »
You need not be an expert in digital or web accessibility to perform some low-threshold testing which will likely identify many high incidence issues in your EIT (electronic information technology). Technology requiring testing will include, but isn’t limited to, web apps, web pages, blog posts, etc. And remember the golden rule: A little testing throughout the process is… Read More »
The U-M Council for Disability Concerns has named David Chesney, a lecturer in computer science and engineering, as the 2018 recipient of the James T. Neubacher Award. Reimagining the way in which U-M campus learning and living can be designed for those affected by a disability poses a number of challenges, but Chesney encourages his students to do… Read More »
As the new disability services coordinator at the University of Michigan-Flint, Harvey “Chip” Evans oversees services that ensure equal opportunity to students with disabilities and helps to promote a welcoming campus environment for any student requiring accommodations. That help can come in a variety of forms, from campus transportation to a test-taking center. It’s technology, though, that has… Read More »
Accessibility efforts are only successful at large institutions and organizations if the efforts being made are scalable; what this means in context is each individual must take ownership in their portion of responsibility to accomplish these goals. In an effort to educate about high-incidence accessibility issues and spread awareness of accessibility efforts, ITS has come up with Accessibility… Read More »
Most blind people on Windows either use JAWS or NVDA as their screen reader of choice. Here is a summary of some of the best screen readers available today.
Accessibility is a priority at the University of Michigan and in Information and Technology Services (ITS). Becoming more accessible as an institution will mean a fundamental shift in approach to how we plan, design, develop, create, and instruct.
U-M Ann Arbor has been named one of America’s top disability-friendly online universities. The 2018 Best and Most Affordable Online Colleges for Students with Disabilities are ranked on thoroughness of resources, Universal Design for Learning training, availability of distance learning accommodations and variety of services provided. The list was published by SR Education Group. “It is nice be… Read More »
Interested in web accessibility and want to learn more? Check out the Ann Arbor Web Accessibility Meetup group. Their first general meeting will be held Tuesday, January 30 at Deque Labs, 2100 S Main St, Ste D. The group is for developers, designers, content creators, and anyone who is interested in digital accessibility and inclusive design. They will host talks,… Read More »
An recent ordinance by the City of Ann Arbor requires closed captioning to be activated on all televisions in public places.
Hiring a professional captioning service to help students with hearing disabilities get information presented in class or at events requires a lot of advance planning and can be costly. Automatic speech recognition programs, while quick and convenient, have unusually high error rates. However, a program called Scribe, developed by Walter Lasecki, assistant professor of information and of computer science… Read More »
As Windows 10 becomes more prevalent on campus, individuals will have access to many new and improved features offered by this operating system. Two tools that have been significantly upgraded are designed as visual aids: the Magnifier and the screen reader Narrator. Both are in the Ease of Access Center Control Panel. Narrator A screen reader like Narrator… Read More »
While U-M has an obligation under Federal law to adopt products that are accessible to everyone in the campus community, not all vendors have the same obligations. To help address this gap, the Information Technology Accessibility Group (ITAG) of the Big 10 Academic Alliance seeks to create a common understanding with vendors of the accessibility requirements and considerations… Read More »
It’s important to give accessibility and the needs of users with disabilities consideration in our daily communications. There are common digital tasks we perform that, with a small amount of effort and forethought, can be more supportive of users with disabilities. As U-M employees we are both morally and legally obligated to support the needs of disabled users.… Read More »