Defining Terms ✿

In September and October of 2023, I explored the term “accessibility” in order to “push beyond surface-level understandings to arrive at new interpretations and insights” of the term" (as described on the course website).

My interest in the term “accessibility” is less about following WCAG and ADA guidelines (although important). It’s really about overcoming the digital, social, physical, and economic barriers related to digital, information, and education accessibility. Growing up with the Internet, I didn't truly understand how the web–from its technical design to its contents–gatekeep people from knowledge, forms of profit, and forms of engagement and creativity found in online communities, digital tools, and especially research (or falling down Internet rabbit holes). Being able to seek out resources is a skill and privilege in of itself.

By redefining the term, I tried to explore different approaches or barriers to accessibility, from concrete examples to forms of gatekeeping. Personally, I was able to explore ideas of cultural and information accessibility through these different lenses.

The etymology of “accessible” is that it comes from the Latin word “accessibilis”¹ which is a verbal adjective of “accessus.”² “Accessus” could mean “entry” or admittance.”³ “Entry” usually refers to the act of entering a space or the entryway itself⁴ while "admittance" is the permission to enter something.⁵

The image for this entry is ironic. It depicts the Van Wickle Gates to Brown University which is considered to be an elite and prestigious institution. Gated universities have the connotation of elitism and exclusion, both in terms of acceptance rates and in economic or social status. Brown University has a physical entryway, but most applicants will not be admitted through these gates. Afterall, the verbiage of walking through or opening the Ivy League gates exists for a reason.

A book on Amazon.com titled Open the Gates to the Ivy League: A Plan B for Getting into the Top Colleges describes how Ivy League schools “reject some 90 percent of applicants” and claims to provide tips on how to overcome these barriers (metaphorically, and maybe physically too). The concepts of “open the gates” and admittance implies the opportunity of inclusion and the very ability to exclude. In short, one way to think about accessibility is how or who we include or exclude people in closed spaces.

Accessibility also relates to information access, whether it means creating new ways or platforms to access information or by making it entirely free.

Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library of websites, books, movies and television, audio, images, and more. Their primary goal is to provide “universal access to knowledge.” Internet Archive can be accessed by anyone for free. Although they initially focused on saving web pages, they have expanded to books in order to provide for those that have difficulties reading printed text and/or may not be able to access certain materials through their local or academic library.⁶ Internet Archive is also interested in creating access to ephemeral media like old versions of websites and television shows. In that sense, they aim to meet the needs of those with various kinds of accessibility issues, including issues faced by those with physical impairments or those with less resources as a result of socioeconomic factors.

They are also concerned with preservation of cultural artifacts, especially with researchers, historians, and scholars in mind. This is a stark contrast to JSTOR which is another digital library—albeit focused on academic journals—that requires some affiliation with a university or high school in order to view over 100 articles per month. Not all articles are accessible using a free account.

Accessibility calls attention to the diversity and intersectionality of experiences, rendering them visible.

Sociologist Irving Zola argues that people with disabilities have no recorded history because they weren’t given the tools to do so which isolates them from greater society. Additionally, early organizations focused on specific causes of a disability and how to cure them. By not focusing on the effect of these disabilities shared by multiple people with different disabilities, this led to fragmentation of the overall disability rights movement. Public relations campaigns also focused on children, suggesting that disabilities are primarily associated with children. As a result, adults with disabilities were excluded from these campaigns.⁷

The disability rights movement became whole in the 1960s. The 504 Sit-in was a disability rights protest that began on April 5, 1977 and lasted for about 25 days in San Francisco, making it one of the most significant community efforts toward disability rights. The protests were a response to the U.S. government which failed to enforce Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.⁸ Among those who protested include Brad Lomax who, in addition to being a disability rights activist, was a member of the Black Panther Party.⁹ Kitty Cone, an LGBT+ disability rights activist, was one of the organizers of the sit-in. This event and the formation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 were predecessors to the American with Disabilities Act of 1990. Both acts primarily focus on the effect of disabilities, rather than the causes, and it also shows how individuals with shared and varied intersectional identities could come together to enact change. The protest was also a kind of public relations campaign that brought diverse experiences to light.

Accessibility can refer to the acceptance of differences, as explained when comparing the medical versus the social model of disability.

In the medical model of disability, disabilities are impairments of the body–physical, mental, or sensory–and should be “fixed” or “cured” to “conform with normative values.”¹⁰

In contrast, the social model of disability states that people are disabled by social and systemic barriers, their environments, exclusion, etc. Impairments are a result of societal failures to accommodate various needs, not because of functional differences arising from physical, mental, intellectual, or other differences.¹¹ Instead of rejecting these differences by trying to “fix” them, the social model normalizes these differences by integrating them into the built and social environment. This model also relates to universal design, an approach that aims to make designed things accessible and useful to everyone to the greatest extent possible.¹² By designing for disabilities, one ends up designing something that is beneficial for an even wider range of people than was intended for. Thus, the social model approach makes designing for accessibility more desirable and beneficial for everyone in the long term.

In fall 2013, Sara Hendren, who was interested in the inclined plane, designed modular ramps that could be used by skateboarders and wheelchair users alike.¹³ Later in 2015, Alice Sheppard collaborated with Hendren to explore ways in which Sheppard could use the ramps for choreography, as she herself uses a wheelchair to dance.¹⁴ The image below depicts Sheppard performing in front of the Seoul Museum of Art while on top of Hendren’s ramps.

Accessible design can often improve other people’s lives, even when they aren’t the intended or primary user. Captions or subtitles allow those who are deaf or hard of hearing to understand fully what is being said (or what is happening in the background). Captions also support those who aren’t native speakers of the spoken language, experience auditory processing disorders, struggle with verbal comprehension or concentration, and watching videos in a public space when playing the audio out loud isn’t possible. About 13% of the population has hearing loss in both ears which makes it surprising to know that in recent surveys, over 50% of respondents said that they turn on subtitles (and that percentage increases with Gen Z’s).¹⁵ Many users use subtitles, even though it isn’t medically necessary.

Sean Zdenek is an associate professor at the University of Delaware who researches web accessibility, disability studies, sound studies, etc.¹⁶ In a blog post titled “Subtitles as visual art,” he examines how subtitles are incorporated into the film Night Watch (2004) with a variety of animated examples available.¹⁷ Instead of just doing the bare minimum by adding simple subtitles, the designers attempted to enhance the experience of those who use them and by creating a new experience for those who don’t typically use them. Accessibility isn’t an afterthought, and playful accessible design was incorporated into the film with planning and effort.