Participation at What Cost? Teaching Accessibility Using Participatory Design: An Experience Report

In this episode I unpack Brinkley’s (2020) publication titled “Participation at what cost? Teaching accessibility using participatory design: An experience report,” which summarizes lessons learned designing and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on inclusive design.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode where i unpack
some scholarship in relation to computer
science education in this week's
particular episode i'm unpacking a paper
titled participation at what cost
teaching accessibility using
participatory design colon an experience
report this is by julian brinkley here's
the abstract for this paper quote as
institutions respond to market demand
and their training of the next
generation of technology designers there
is an increasing awareness of the need
to add accessibility to computer science
and informatics curricula advocates have
suggested three strategies for including
accessibility and discussions of
disability in courses changing a lecture
adding a lecture or adding a new course
in this paper we report on our
experiences with the latter
incorporating accessibility within two
new graduate and undergraduate inclusive
design courses taught concurrently we
found that while the use of
participatory design was decidedly
effective in supporting student learning
and ameliorating ableist attitudes
creating and managing teams comprised of
students and visually impaired
co-designers proved challenging despite
these challenges overall students
demonstrated steady growth in their
grasp of inclusive design concepts as
they tackled accessibility challenges
through a series of mobility-related
group projects efficiencies were also
realized through the concurrent teaching
of both courses though the pace of
course deliverables proved challenging
at times for undergraduates we argued
that a review of our experience may help
others interested in teaching
accessibility related courses
specifically in course design and
execution end quote now if i summarize
this paper into a single sentence i'd
say that this experience report
summarizes lessons learned designing and
teaching undergraduate and graduate
courses on inclusive design now you can
find a link to this paper in the show
notes which you can find at
jarrodaliry.com and clicking on the
podcast tab or simply clicking the link
in the app that you're listening to this
on and you'll notice that this podcast
is powered by boot up professional
development which is the nonprofit that
i work for you want to check out the
free coding curriculum that i create
just go to boot up pd.org or if you want
to learn more about a professional
development you can check that out there
too so in the introduction the author
mentions that there are a lot of
different technologies that assist with
accessibility as the industry in general
is moving toward a better understanding
of
end user diversity quote this increasing
recognition that end users are not a
single homogenous group has spurted
demand of technology designers with the
skill set rooted in user center design
and accessibility end quote from page
while the vast majority 84 of companies
believe that it's important to hire
designers with accessible technology
skills 60 of those companies said it's
hard to find people who have those
skills so it's important for
institutions higher education or even
k12 to help people develop those skills
so that way they can fill jobs like that
now in the next section the background
and related work the author summarizes
some different scholarship related to
accessibility and design so one of the
papers was talking about how they
introduced accessibility as a topic
across a few different engineering
degrees so degrees in electrical
electronics and automatic control
industrial product design electronic
systems and computer science and they
found that students perform differently
depending on which degree they had so
for example quote students from product
design for instance produce the highest
grades while students in cs and
electrical systems obtain the lowest end
quote which is interesting i wonder what
that is the next paper that the talk
about is by coen ladner and if you
haven't listened to the interview that i
did with amy co i highly recommend it
i'll include a link to that in the show
notes but in that paper they recommend
three different strategies one is you
can change the focus of the lecture to
center around accessibility another is
to add a lecture as an accessibility
topic and then the last one is to add an
entirely new course which is what the
author did in this paper and then the
third paper that they talk about is a
paper that explores quote how designing
for both disabled and non-disabled users
encourage students to think about
accessibility in quotes for page 115 any
of those three papers sound interesting
i'd highly recommend checking out the
paper that i'm reading from so you can
check out the references and explore the
related works all right so the next
section is titled case study inclusive
design and accessible technology they
talk about the case being lin
undergraduate and graduate course where
quote the overarching goal of both
courses was to aid students in learning
how inclusive design practices may be
used to identify user characteristics
study user needs ideate design prototype
and evaluate technologies for
accessibility end quote from page 115
and the following page on 116 actually
has some learning objective descriptions
and i'll read from that list there's
seven of them so the first one is to
describe the characteristics of various
disabilities as they relate to computer
and technology use the second one is
describe how people with disabilities
and older adults use assistive
technologies example screen readers
keyboard mouse alternatives etc number
three is describe inclusive design as a
methodology and understand how to
practically incorporate principles of
accessibility into the design process
number four is to describe the
philosophical basis and rationale for
accessibility number five is to describe
the characteristics of inclusive
technologies number six is to design and
implement inclusive and accessible
systems and number seven is to describe
the mechanisms that exist for technology
professional to evaluate a technology
for accessibility now each one of those
objectives might also be relevant in k12
cs classes and whatnot some of them more
relevant than others i don't know if
kindergarteners necessarily need to be
able to describe the philosophical basis
and rationale for accessibility but high
schoolers middle schoolers certainly
could even late elementary students so
if you rewind that back or if you go and
actually read this paper itself think of
how might you actually be able to
include these learning objectives in the
cs classes that you facilitate or teach
or design or whatever the way that this
author did this was in university
courses that had 10 modules first
modules kind of an introduction the
second module is focusing on theories of
design and accessibility and they worked
in groups of two or three people and
they were quote asked to identify 10
problematic control panels that they
encountered in daily life identify the
design breakdowns and select one panel
to be redesigned final deliverable was a
poster outlining the research and design
process that was reviewed during an
in-class critique end quote from page
you could do in k12 and aligns with some
of the k-12 standards like csta's
standards now module three started off a
four-part series with the first one
focusing on quote visual impairment and
blindness and involve lectures videos
and readings which explore the causes of
visual impairment appropriate
terminology related to visual impairment
and assistive technologies like screen
readers and refreshable braille displays
module 4 explored mobility disabilities
and related assistive technologies
module 5 explored auditory disabilities
in the series concluded with module 6
which explored cognitive disabilities
through lectures videos and selected
readings and quotes from page 116 and
then modules seven through ten focused
on a two-phase design project quote in
phase one of the semester project
students were asked to explore the
concept of an accessible transportation
chain comprised of emerging technologies
through the design of a pre-trip
concierge mobile application of an
autonomous vehicle in quotes from page
the project itself quote in small teams
of two to three students were asked to 1
conduct user research using focus groups
and interviews 2. conduct a literature
review or video analysis of the user
experience with related technologies
example uber or lyft three aggregate
their findings and identify user needs
through affinity diagramming four
construct personas that reflected the
main themes uncovered during user
research five brainstorm design ideas to
address user needs six create scenarios
in storyboards seven produce a system
task flow diagram and eight create
wireframes of the final concierge
application end quotes from page 117.
all of that process the eight steps in
there is certainly something that you
could do in k12 context as well just
with maybe different contexts or
different outcomes etc in phase two they
actually had a visually impaired
co-designer come in and work on the
project and so they were compensated
with a prepaid gift card for each
session that they participated in which
may or may not be difficult to do in a
k-12 context but it's certainly
important to consider for designing for
a particular disability it would help to
have somebody there as a co-designer who
had that disability and i don't use that
term lightly by the way if you listen to
some of the other interviews i've done
with like maya israel jesse rathgeber
etc i think it's important to consider
ableistic terms and whatnot all right so
in the discussion section the author
talks about several different aspects of
this particular course so one is an
elaboration on the lectures next one is
on the participatory design then they
talk about time slots readings the
workload team composition teaching both
of the courses concurrently scalability
and the instructor perspective i'm not
going to read through all these because
i don't necessarily think they are super
relevant to a k8 or k12 audience but if
any of those headers sounded interesting
to you i highly recommend checking out
this paper but the participatory design
section the author mentions that the
students were most engaged in the design
activity which i imagine if you're to
replicate that in a k12 context they
would say something similar kids
generally and adults aren't as engaged
in a lecture as they are in actually
creating something or designing
something the author also mentions that
students really valued having a
co-designer in this process and that
quote the combination of site visits to
organizations serving disabled persons
coupled with the use of participatory
design gave students a greater
appreciation for the innate abilities of
disabled persons while ameliorating
ableist attitudes in quote from page 117
however here's an interesting paragraph
on pages 117 and 118. while successful
the use of participatory design was not
without drawbacks the use of this
process entailed financial costs which
were nominal as well as recruiting and
logistical costs which were significant
while an existing relationship with
leadership of the national federation of
the blind was leveraged to assist in
co-designer recruitment recruiting
participants still proved challenging
though the initial pool of interested
persons were sizable identifying
participants one within close proximity
to the university two who were able to
commit to meetings with students over a
several week period and who three
could attend during hours that vary
depending upon student availability
significantly narrowed the pool of those
interested by involving co-designers
external to the course it was also
necessary to seek institutional review
board approval and closely monitor
communication between an interaction
with the students and the de facto study
participants end quote now that is an
excellent point i honestly hated group
work in college in particular because
our schedules were so drastically
different some people did their work in
late evenings some people did it in
early mornings some people did it midday
etc well other people had jobs during
those times etc like i used to work in a
stain shop long before the sun would
ever come up we're talking two three in
the morning i was staining closet doors
that cost more than i paid for my house
so because i was getting to work that
early in the morning or sometimes
staying just really late at night my
sleep schedule is off so when other
people wanted to meet for something i
typically was sleeping or at least
attempting to this however in a k-12
context if you do the work at school
might honestly be easier especially if
you have an integrated approach to
various disabilities in your campus or
school like many of the schools that i
worked with had an integrated approach
where students would come to the various
specialist classes that i was teaching
and some others had some standalone
classes that could relatively easily
find some time to collaborate with other
classes now one other section that i
want to point out that was interesting
was the scalability discussion is that
the author notes that it's difficult to
do this with a larger number of students
especially when trying to find enough
co-participants or co-designers to
collaborate with the different groups so
if you can't do that in your campus then
you might want to look into potentially
doing some virtual collaborations if
possible and if this interests you which
hopefully does now again i skipped over
some stuff in here but if any of those
other sections that i listed off sound
interesting to you i do recommend taking
a look at the paper but the author
concludes by basically stating that hey
having a standalone course like this
works and hopefully this experience
report kind of helps other people design
similar classes now as always when i'm
reading these papers i like to share
some of my lingering questions and
thoughts at the end of the episode so
one of them is how might inclusive
design practices be infused into other
courses so it's great that they had a
course that focused on this but then how
might you cycle back to this throughout
the degree program or if this isn't a
k12 context if you had a unit on
accessibility how might you keep coming
back to that in following semesters or
years i'm thinking of like a brunerian
spiral approach where you keep spiraling
with increasing complexity to be able to
dive deeper into
understandings of accessibility and
accessible design so as an example when
i
was a faculty associate for university
we had a class that i facilitated and
helped design called the digital hybrid
lab and so it's basically like music
technology for music educators like how
specifically could you incorporate music
technology pedagogy and practices and
devices into your ensemble or general
music class or whatever we collaborated
with the other professors who taught the
follow-up practicum courses to tell them
hey here are the concepts and
understandings that students ideally
will be able to walk away with and
should be able to demonstrate let's come
up with some projects that align with
what you're already going to teach in
that class that builds off of the
understandings from the digital hybrid
lab so okay students learn how to set up
different types of microphones for
different scenarios how to record them
through a daw and then how to edit them
to create an audio file or even a movie
or whatever so let's use those
understandings to create some kind of a
project in a class that they take after
the digital hybrid lab same thing could
happen in a k12 context if you do a unit
on accessibility and accessible design
great find ways to keep coming back to
that every single time you're doing a
new project have some kind of criteria
that is linked to accessibility so that
students don't just engage in this once
and then forget about it but those are
my own thoughts there are many different
ways that you can include this into your
class so again the question is how might
we include the inclusive design
practices in other courses but another
question that i have is when wouldn't
you consider designing for accessibility
or using inclusive design practices if
you haven't listened to other episodes
where i do this i really like to ask
questions that cause me to question
things that i strongly agree with
whether it's one of these unpacking
scholarship episodes or if it's like an
interview with a guest where i'm like
yep totally agree with him i will often
ask a question that's like well when
wouldn't you do that thing that i
strongly agree with it helps me better
understand why i agree with something
but also understand perspectives of when
i wouldn't agree with that so posing
this question accessible design
practices seems like something we should
do all the time but because i like to
argue with myself to try and better
understand why i think that one possible
answer that i can come up with in the
moment is like computational thinking
it's often taught as being used to solve
problems there are many definitions of
computational thinking but that's one of
the more common ones is like thinking
like a computer scientist or using
computers to solve some kind of a
problem the focus is on solving problems
through a computer so if the focus is on
solving problems in a scenario like that
accessibility might not be the issue
that we focus on if the problem itself
doesn't focus on an accessibility issue
or it's not designed into the experience
for example the traveling salesman
problem that is often posed that relates
to computational thinking or at least
certainly can let's say the salesman
needs to go to 10 different businesses
within a major city what's the fastest
route that the salesman can take to get
to each of the 10 businesses that
problem does not really have anything to
do with accessibility however if we
framed it as what's the fastest route
while accounting for the fact that they
are blind and will need to use
crosswalks that have audible signals to
indicate when they can and cannot cross
a crosswalk and that not all of the
intersections have those then that
becomes more of a computational thinking
problem with the focus on accessibility
or we could even do one that focuses on
like environmentalism like what is the
most environmentally friendly way for
this traveling salesperson to get to the
point is when we have these kind of
problems that do not have an
accessibility lens or maybe even an
equity lens or an environmental or
social justice or however you want to
think of it any kind of lens that you
think of try and find ways that you can
slightly modify it to make it so that it
can focus on some of those things but
those are just some questions and
thoughts that i had while reading
through this i did enjoy the paper did
made me think oh how would i apply this
if i was still working in a k-8 class
and i was teaching coding so hopefully
listening this episode also inspired you
to think of how might you include
accessible design practices in your
class if you're interested in a more
resources and podcasts related to
accessibility again the show notes at
jaredowlery.com includes like an
interview with andreas stephek with maya
israel with jesse rathgeber so i was
like unpacking scholarship episodes
where i talk about like universal design
for learning things like that if you
enjoyed this episode please consider
sharing with someone else or providing a
review on whatever platform you're
listening to this on thank you to
everyone who has done that either of
those stay tuned next week for another
episode until then i hope you're all
staying safe and are having a wonderful
week

Article

Brinkley, J. (2020). Participation at what cost? Teaching accessibility using participatory design: An experience report. Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE, 114–120.

Abstract

“As institutions respond to market demand in their training of the next generation of technology designers, there is an increasing awareness of the need to add accessibility to computer science and informatics curricula. Advocates have suggested three strategies for including accessibility and discussions of disability in courses: changing a lecture, adding a lecture or adding a new course. In this paper we report on our experiences with the latter; incorporating accessibility within two new graduate and undergraduate inclusive design courses taught concurrently. We found that while the use of participatory design was decidedly effective in supporting student learning and ameliorating ableist attitudes, creating and managing teams comprised of students and visually impaired co-designers proved challenging. Despite these challenges, overall, students demonstrated steady growth in their grasp of inclusive design concepts as they tackled accessibility challenges through a series of mobility-related group projects. Efficiencies were also realized through the concurrent teaching of both courses though the pace of course deliverables proved challenging at times for undergraduates. We argue that a review of our experience may help others interested in teaching accessibility related courses, specifically in course design and execution.”

Author Keywords

Accessibility, assistive technology, education, participatory design

My One Sentence Summary

This experience report summarizes lessons learned designing and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on inclusive design.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

How might inclusive design practices be infused into other courses?
When wouldn’t you consider designing for accessibility or using inclusive design practices?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Accessible CS Education through Evidence-based Programming Languages with Andreas Stefik
  - In this interview with Andreas Stefik, we discuss the importance of using evidence-based programming languages, problems with the lack of replication in CS education scholarship and academia in general, the importance of designing for accessibility and disabilities, lessons learned designing Quorum (an accessible programming language and platform), and much more.
- Accessibility and Inclusion in CS Education with Maya Israel
  - In this interview with Maya Israel, we discuss Maya’s shift from special education into CS education, the importance of universal design for learning (UDL) in CS classes, understanding the spectrum of accessibility for students with a diverse set of needs, the current status of accessibility and inclusion within the field of CS education, problematize deficit framings of students with disabilities, and so much more
- Exploring (Dis)Ability and Connecting with the Arts with Jesse Rathgeber
  - In this interview with Jesse Rathgeber, we discuss what educators should know about (dis)ability culture and research, person-first language vs identity-first language, suggestions for combating ableism through anti-ableist practices, how the arts and CS can come together and learn from each other (great for sharing with arts educators who might be interested in CS), and much more.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- Planning K-8 Computer Science through the UDL Framework
  - In this episode I unpack Israel, Lash, Bergeron, and Ray’s publication titled “Planning K-8 computer science through the UDL framework,” which discusses the potential for using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in CS classes.
- Should I Say “Disabled People” or “People with Disabilities”?
  - In this episode I unpack Sharif, McCall, and Bolante’s (2022) publication titled “Should I say “disabled people” or “people with disabilities”? Language preferences of disabled people between identity- and person-first language,” which summarizes findings from a survey on participant preferences for language around disability and an analysis on language in conference abstracts.
- Vulnerability, Reflection, and CS Education with Amy Ko
  - In this interview with Amy Ko, we discuss the importance of mentorship in education, learning what not to do with teaching, the positive results of being vulnerable, understanding and exploring the limitations and consequences of CS, problematizing grades in education, practicing teaching through mental simulations, the importance of engaging in the CS community, and much more.
- More episodes related to accessibility
- More episodes related to inclusion
- All other episodes
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter