AccessSTEM Provides WAT?

WAT? That's right. WAT.

AccessSTEM has held Web Accessibility Trainings (WAT) for high school and college students with disabilities since 2009. One goal of AccessSTEM is to help students with disabilities succeed in STEM courses and reach critical junctures on paths toward college studies and careers in STEM fields. WATs help students learn the basics of web design, with an emphasis on how to create web pages that are accessible to all users, including those who are unable to see, use a mouse, perceive color, and use a smart phone or other mobile device. Developing skills in accessible web design could be the start of a career in web accessibility. Several web accessibility positions have been advertised in recent months, including positions at colleges and universities; federal, state, and local government agencies; and consulting companies. Leading technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and even Facebook, have also announced positions for accessibility engineers.

WATs include training on writing accessible HTML and provide a basic introduction to cascading style sheets (CSS) and Javascript. These three ingredients are used together to create most modern web pages. WATs include a variety of hands-on activities. Students conduct accessibility evaluations of real-world websites, design their own websites, and caption STEM-related YouTube videos. The technical aspects of the trainings are combined with practical training related to employment and self-advocacy. Participation in the trainings also helps connect students with educational and work-related experiences, including internships.

Our WATs are typically three- or five-day trainings targeted at specific groups. The first was taught in the summer of 2009, and included ten students from various colleges and universities. One participant who was previously undecided in his career path, but was motivated by his WAT experience, decided to spend a year at a community college to complete the prerequisites to pursue a bachelor's degree in computer science. After the workshop, he found a summer internship at the UW Seattle.

In 2010, inspired by the success of the first WAT, AccessSTEM conducted two more WATs, one three-day training in August for a pair of AccessSTEM team members attending high school in SPS, and a larger five-day training for AccessSTEM Team members at BC. Thirty students participated in the BC WAT, including Anna, who is now working as an intern rebuilding the website of the Seattle Deaf-Blind Service Center to make it more accessible and improve its overall design. You can read more about Anna on page six.

Some WAT students have pursued additional training in web- and computer-related areas, and have reported bringing accessibility awareness to their instructors and peers. Our objective in offering these trainings is for students to acquire technical and employable skills, but also to raise awareness about web accessibility among future designers and engineers of the world. It's a small start, but if each student educates one other person, who educates yet another person, and so on, we'll be on our way to a more accessible future.

For additional information about future WATs, contact Terrill Thompson at tft@uw.edu or stay tuned to www.uw.edu/doit/Stem/stem_events.html.