Universal Design—Encouraging its use at

NIU

Presidential Commission on Persons with Disabilities

◦Advise the President

◦Promote accessibility

◦Collaborate and advocate

PCPD’s Mission

Language Influences Perception

“Accessibility” has multiple meanings

◦ Audience◦ Frame

Promote inclusion

Enhance recruitment and marketing

Increase retention and graduation rates

Universal Design and Vision 2020

Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.

◦ 1997 NC State University, The Center for Universal Design (Ron Mace)

Aging population, especially Baby Boomers

Mobile technologies

Profitability

Legislation

Influences on Universal Design

Equitable Use Principle One: The design is useful and

marketable to people with diverse abilities

Flexibility in Use Principle Two: The design

accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.

Simple and Intuitive Principle Three: Use of the design is easy

to understand, regardless of the user's experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.

Perceptible Information

Principle Four: The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user's sensory abilities.

Tolerance for Error

Principle Five: The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions.

Low Physical Effort

Principle Six: The design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.

Size and Space for Approach and Use

Principle Seven: Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user's body size, posture, or mobility.

Universal Design in the Community

Automatic doorsStore doors Subway doors

Curb CutsHotel entrance Sidewalk

Landscaping

Elevators

Moving piano up stairs Who wants to walk up 30 flights?

Universal design in the home

Universally designed bathroom

Universal Design: Beyond Built Environment

Learning

Attitudes

Technology

Universal Design of Learning

Design of instruction to be usable by all students, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.

Universally Designed Instruction

Provides students with a wide range of abilities, disabilities, ethnic backgrounds, language skills, and learning styles

Multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement.

Attitudes and Campus Climate

Awareness of cultural and disability etiquette

Person-first language

Recognition of disability as a difference, not as pathology

Technology

Accessible webpages Ability to navigate by the control of your

choice: links, paragraphs, headings, forms, etc.

◦ More information◦ Click here for more information◦ For more information, click here

Captioning

Text readability

PCPD Emphasis 2012:UD and Communication

Supports different learning styles

Helps index content so it can be searched

Provides access to media in noisy environments

Improves understanding of content and overall language skills

Captioning Benefits

Closed Captioning in a Noisy Environment

More Noisy Environments

TVs in Sports Bar Health club TVs

Text Readability

Text-based information should be readily understood by the intended audience(s)

Readability analyzes indicate the number of years of education that a person needs to be able to understand the text easily on the first reading

Polysyllabic words and long, complex sentences increase reading difficulty

Readability Comparisons Student grade appeal (contained in the

Academic Policies and Procedures Manual)

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

All analyses used the readability calculator available at readability calculator

Grade Appeal Policy (APPM)

The following procedures are available only for review of allegedly capricious grading, and not for review of the judgment of an instructor in assessing the quality of a student's work. Capricious grading, as that term is used herein, is limited to one or more of the following:◦ the assignment of a grade to a particular undergraduate student on some basis other than performance in the

course;

◦ the assignment of a grade to a particular undergraduate student by more exacting or demanding standards than were applied to other undergraduate students in that section;

◦ the assignment of a grade by a substantial departure from the instructor's criteria distributed in writing during the first fourth of a course.

The assessment of the quality of a student's academic performance is one of the major professional responsibilities of university faculty members and is solely and properly their responsibility. It is essential for the standards of the academic programs at Northern Illinois University and the integrity of the degrees conferred by this university that the professional judgments of faculty members not be subject to pressures or other interference from any source. In order to assure the equitable assessment of a student's academic abilities, faculty are to maintain grading materials in accordance with Section III, Item 5,F.

New York Times articleThe Flub Watch Never Stops for Obama’s Team

Helen Cooper

2/5/2012

WASHINGTON — For Brad Woodhouse, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, it was when he came across a Twitter post about a CNN interview in which Mitt Romney seemd to shrug off concern for the very poor. And Bill Burton’s moment came a week and a half ago while he was in his family room watching Mr. Romney take Newt Gingrich to task for talking about putting a colony on the moon. If someone made such a proposal to him, Mr. Romney said, “I’d say, ‘You’re fired.’ ”

Both moments were perceived by the Obama re-election campaign as another gift from Mr. Romney — now dubbed “the gift that keeps on giving” by some on the Obama team. “Just when you thought we had enough videotape about him firing people, he gives you one more,” Mr. Burton, who leads a political action committee backing the president, said before laughing.

In the rarefied world that is dedicated to getting Mr. Obama re-elected, the battle has never been viewed through the prism of how to beat Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Ron Paul. It has always been about Mitt Romney.

Now as Mr. Romney appears to be cementing his position as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination — he won the Nevada primary handily on Saturday — Mr. Obama’s aides and campaign staff have intensified their focus….

Wall Street JournalRomney Builds Momentum

Janet Hook and Patrick O'Connor

2/6/2012

Mitt Romney, buoyed by a fresh victory in Nevada, appears to be shoring up support among the conservative voters who once appeared tempted by his rivals, putting the former Massachusetts governor in the strongest position since Republicans began voting a month ago.

After notching back-to-back victories in swing states, Mr. Romney could benefit from a pause over the coming weeks in what has been a frenetic and topsy-turvy GOP presidential race. There are few major states voting and no nationally televised debates until Feb. 22.

But it is a perilous stretch for Mr. Romney's rivals as they try to raise money and convince Republican voters they have a real shot at the nomination.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, undaunted by his distant second-place finishes in Nevada and Florida, pledged Sunday to take his campaign to the GOP convention this summer and sharpen the contrast between himself and Mr. Romney….

Readability Statistics

Incorporate these guidelines into your work

Educate others

Be an advocate

Universal Design is Contagious

NIU Presidential Commission on Persons with Disabilities (www.niu.edu/pcpd)

DO-IT◦ www.washington.edu/doit

Center for Applied Special Technology ◦ www.cast.org/

Text readability calculator ◦ www.online-utility.org/english/readability

For more information…