Inclusive New Media

Overview

Research context

Web accessibility

Inclusive New Media Design takes place in a context in which there is growing awareness of the need for the WWW to be accessible to all of the world’s citizens. The W3C WAI and, in the UK, the British Standards Institute, through its recent publication ‘Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Websites’, attend to the virtual needs of people with disabilities, favouring the use of automated checkers to test the accessibility of websites. However, recent research found that, of the 19% of 1000 websites analysed which reached minimum accessibility standards when put through a checker, few of these were really usable by disabled users because of problems such as complex page structures or inappropriate use of colour. The same research also found that only 9% of developers surveyed claimed accessibility expertise, indicating not only that the guidelines may not work, but also that few designers know about them (DRC 2004). Other research in the area of disability and web/ICT participation has focused, quite rightly, on users, examining the usability of a range of technologies or the contribution they can make to improving disabled users’ lives. Few projects, however, have attempted to integrate disabled users into the design process (http://www.aphasiahelp.org). 

Intellectual disability

Within both standards bodies and academic research, the accessibility needs of the intellectually disabled have been historically overlooked. This absence has recently been addressed in some academic research, for example on Project @pple, which explored the terms on which people with cognitive disabilities can participate in the WWW. Inclusive New Media Design builds, in part, on Project @pple. Project @pple found that the notion of universal accessibility promoted by the W3C WAI is problematic, and that accessible solutions for intellectually disabled communities contrast with the accessibility needs of the physically disabled. The project concluded that there is a need to increase awareness of this fact in design and development communities.

Designers and developers

Whilst Project @pple, like other research in this area, focused primarily on its intellectually disabled users, it also attended to the process of web design, based on the premise that technologies are ‘ideas made real’, marked by their conditions of production, and that a disabled user’s experience of new media can be better understood through an analysis of how it gets made. Project @pple found that, despite the project’s focus on intellectual disability, it was more difficult than anticipated to get commercial designers to attend to the accessibility requirements of this population, and concluded that more understanding is needed of the creative design processes of new media workers and the impact these have on the adoption of the accessibility ethos and guidelines.

Theoretical context

In theoretical terms, there is a current flurry of debate in the humanities and elsewhere about new media work, design and creativity, as witnessed, for example, in special issues of journals and articles focusing on the paid labour of web design and the unpaid work of ‘producing culture for the digital economy’. Across the arts, humanities and HCI, attention is turning to the role of intuition, emotions, ‘gut feelings’ and affect in new media design processes. These concerns hint at the ultimate ‘unknowability’ of the creative design process and beg a number of questions about the role that technical specifications can play in these processes. For example, do designers persist in perceiving the guidelines as resulting in dull, media-poor and text-rich websites, websites that their commercial clients would not want them to produce? Do other approaches, like integrating disabled users into the design process, or highlighting inspiring accessible design practice, resonate more with intuitive and emotional design approaches than the technical language of accessibility guidelines?

Inclusive New Media Design brings together all of these themes. First, it aims to increase awareness of accessibility issues and solutions, a need identified in the DRC’s research. Second, it aims to highlight the accessibility needs of the intellectually disabled, as recommended on Project @pple. Third, it aims to explore the effectiveness of integrating disabled users into the design process; such an approach was encouraged as a result of the DRC’s research. Finally, in keeping with technology studies’ traditions of carrying out research with the human agents who design and shape technologies, but unlike existing research into disability, ICTs and web accessibility, it focuses primarily on designers and explores the relationship between technical guidelines and creative processes.