Fundamentals of Accessibility 

Lectures

1. General introduction and orientation

• Course terminology
• Visual vs invisible disabilities
• Socio-economic factors etc.
• Understanding disability

2. Legislation and policies

• Types of legislation and policies, types of accessibility
• United Nations – Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
• Standards and guidelines, EU Legislation, legislation and policies in Finland
• Liability of technology manufacturers or service providers

3. Users: Sensory impairments

• Visual impairments
• Auditory impairments
• Physical impairments

4. Users: Cognitive impairment

• Linguistic and cognitive accessibility
• Easy and plain language
• User groups (intellectual disability, dementia, ASD, aphasia, dyslexia)

5. Accessible culture and communication

• Accessible communication (easy spoken interaction)
• Accessible culture: forms of accessibility, policies, practices

6. Making content accessible

• Methods of intralingual and interlingual translation for the conversion of speech to text and text to speech and the adaptation of language and localisation
• Methods of intermodal and -semiotic translation for the conversion of visual and auditory information to verbal or vice versa

7. Accessible human-technology interaction

• Basics of human-technology interaction
• Enabling technologies: speech, haptics, gestures, gaze and others
• Examples of accessibility solutions

8. Assistive technologies and adaptive strategies 

• Accessibility features and accessibility barriers
• Assistive technologies
• Adaptive strategies

9. Accessibility and user experience

• User experience evaluation of interactive applications (e.g., SUXES method)
• Field studies with special user groups (e.g., SymbolChat, Voice cotrolled TV)
• Assessing experiences of individuals with developmental disabilities with interactive applications (behavorial observations, data triangulation, stakeholder interviews)
• Field studies with children with developmental disabilities (examples from previous research)

10. Web accessibility

• Accessibility features and accessibility barriers on the web
• The impact of accessible and inaccessible Web design on people’s lives around the world
• Web documents and understandable Web content
• Web documents and basics of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Overview to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (e.g. Alt text, captions, keyboard navigation and focus, roles)