This slide deck gives tips on how to help others see the value in incorporating accessibility best practices into everyday workflows.

1. Accessible Usable U
Talking points
for working with
friends

2. Talking with instructors, our friends
yay!
show me
how!
I’ll wait until
it’s requested.
meh.
These are some of the typical responses we get when we raise the issue of accessibility measures with colleagues.

3. We want to shift thinking: accessibility as a
participatory act.
The goal of Accessible Usable U is to help move minds from thinking of accessibility as an accommodation (something that the
Disability Resource Center will take care of upon request) to thinking of accessibility as a contributory, activist act where we all
take some personal, daily responsibility for creating an accessible institution..
participatory act

4. Who are we talking
about when we talk
about accessibility?

5. Accessibility means
that the product or
system can be used
by people of all abilities
and conditions.
Sensory Motility
CognitiveAffective Bandwidth
Age-related

6. Accessible measures
you’re already doing

7. Accessible measures you’re already doing

8. “Basic skills”

9. Things you’re already doing right

10. Basic skills are at the intersection between what
developers control and what instructional designers
and instructors can control.
stuff
developers
control
stuff we
can control
How did we decide on this set of basic skills? We considered several intersections: things that developers and web designers have
to control, such as whether a website includes skip navigation, versus things that are within the control of the everyday
University employee.

11. Basic skills are all possible in the “everyday” apps
we and instructors work in daily.
stuff
instructional
designers
do in
specialized
apps
“everyday”
apps we all
work in

12. We feel that the basic skills are things that don’t
take too much time and that instructors could
reasonably be expected to do.
stuff that
requires
extra skill
stuff
instructors
do

13. The basic skills are in the “sweet spot” of a number
of factors.
Basic
skills
of accessible
communication

14. “Basic skills” of accessible
communication
1.Headers and document structure
2.Hyperlinks
3.Bullets and lists
4.Color and contrast
5.Video captions
6.Alt text on images
“Basic skills” (as a list)

15. How will you incorporate these 6 measures
into your everyday workflows?

16. Integrating accessible measures into your workflow can be difficult. Start small. Celebrate the small wins, the attempts that turn
into daily habits. Notice where your communications are improving.

17. 3 strategies for helping
friends incorporate
accessible measures
into their workflows

18. First, consider your own motivations for adding accessible measures to your workflows. Are you the type who tends to
implement changes in your life in small increments? Perhaps useful to think of adding accessible measures like exercises to
gradually build muscle. Or are you someone who prefers to change only when presented with a negative consequence?
Consequences-as-motivator
Preventive
measures

19. Accessible products and systems can be used by people of all abilities. Usable products and systems help people accomplish their
goals efficiently and easily. When talking to friends, you can leverage these affinities by explaining how the accessible measure
benefits both “groups” of people (even though we’re all in both “groups”, in some way). For example, structuring documents using
well-written headers helps people scan web pages with their eyes or with their ears (if they’re using a screen reader).
accessible usable

20. Accessible measures also have a cost-benefit for your friends, so appeal to the “me” factor. For example, formatting documents
using paragraph styles makes it easier to apply document-level formatting changes later.
accessible usable
me

21. Present accessible-usable measures as part of the workflow. Show them how you personally are incorporating it into your
workflows, and tell how it’s benefited you to adopt the new habit. In this video, I explain how and why I incorporate script-writing
into my screencast recording workflows, and how this step benefits the whole process.

22. Like this resource? It’s called a sliderding!
Learn more at z.umn.edu/sliderding