Universal Design, or how to make a digital project accesible for all

This past week, we read two articles—one by Williams the other by Edwards—that discuss the importance of Universal Design, or how to provide for both individuals with and without disabilities, digitally and non-digitally literate in DH.  Instead of discussing too much about the article, this blog post is dedicated to the examination of Universal Design in regards to the digital project entitled The Yellow Nineties Online.  It is a fairly simple site to navigate, and easy to understand. In terms of visual appeal I like that the background is darker with the yellow accents. From a visual rhetorical standpoint it really seems to fit what they were discussing in that first paragraph: that the yellow shined out from the bookstore window into the streets, breaking through the darkness of Industrial/Victorian England.

I think this plays into the articles, as well, in terms of accessibility stated, the same anxieties are shared by both the established DH scholars and the future of DH. It also helps that this project is so new. It's almost like a stepping stone between the "professionals" and the "n00bs". The project reveals that there are still ways for up-and-comers to enter the field and even encourages them to do so by submitting to the website. The Yellow Nineties Online is an important tool for those entering the seemingly "unfriendly" world of DH by providing a way for future scholars to enter into the world and have the chance to be published.

One thing that also stood out to me in terms of accessibility is that the page is edited as opposed to administered or composed by Denisoff and Kooistra. It even says so blatantly on the header. This says to me that, much like our Matt Gold book, this is a collaborative project, and therefore accessible to a wider audience by asking for contributions. As we have discussed, all digital projects are collaborative; what I mean is that it's collaborative even in the sense of composition and content.

Because it is such an inclusive website and encourages submissions, it appears that perhaps individuals can submit suggestions for how to make it more universal.  Earlier in the week I tweeted to them: "@Y90sOnline Re: accessibility: consider making the background less busy for the hearing impaired. It's a bit distracting visually."  Those with hearing disabilities rely on their sight as their main source of information gathering.  With a distracting background, which appears in the periphery of the viewer, those with hearing impairments may have a difficult time concentrating on the content of the website.  I felt comfortable sending them this contribution since they are open to connecting with those who visit the page and have already taken steps towards "universal design"; why not make recommendations to a newer project? Maybe I'm overstepping my bounds as a newbie in DH but it appears that the ethos of the project encourages recommendations and is attempting to be as inclusive as possible, both to users and contributors.

This project fascinates me as it does more than just the database function. It's more like an online journal -- as seen with the editors and requests for contributions -- but with database functions. I like how the site reaches out and requests interaction with the viewer - it makes DH more accessible and less scary, for some reason.

 

Open Access, or the availability of websites and to whom they are open.

This week had me contemplating the idea of open access and what it means to the digital humanities, in relation to both canonicity and digital projects. 

Matthew Wilkens had a clever project which had him approaching the humanities and literature from a qualitative as opposed to quantitative.  Wilkens collected data from the “corpus of thirty-seven American literary texts published in 1851” (Gold 252).  What he found was, despite the prominent popular discussions of the New England Romanticism, there are a slew of places mentioned from around the world but most prominently a cluster in the American South.  This data opposes the traditional American literary canon.  Thus, the canon has been opened for other literary texts to enter and provide a different outlook on the literature of the early 1850s.

The project opened up more than just the canon, however.  It also explored the importance of quantitative research in the field of Digital Humanities.  In class, AJ voiced his concern that this research does not help contribute an understanding to the literary work itself.  However, Steve explained that we are looking at this project through only one lens.  By examining the project as useful to the humanities and not just the field of English, the results found by Wilkens open up to a broader possibility of research options.  Perhaps this idea is not that new to the Digital Humanities, but as an outsider and beginner to the field this approach seems open and accessible in general to a wider audience within the discipline. 

The concept of open access in Digital Humanities is most often applied to websites and a matter that I realized was much more complicated than initially thought.  When Ali sent out discussion topics for this week, his first question had me rethinking my understanding of open access.  He asked us to explore restricted, limited, and unlimited access to website content and how we would define an open-access website.

Prior to class this week, my understanding of open access came from whether or not an individual could explore a website without having to log on or pay to have access to log on.  However, as Brandon and Julia explained in class, one of the websites examined for class was open access to everyone in the United Kingdom but the information was only available to those in the States who have the ability to access certain journals.  This limits the accessibility and the definition of open access.  The definition can also be explored in terms of how accessible a digital project is to various people.  For instance, The DickensJournals Online allows individuals and scholars to sign up for free – which opens access to anyone who stumbles across the site – but also provides tools and resources for those who are visually impaired.  They have a text-to-speech tool which opens access to a diverse public. 

This week’s readings really had me contemplating what open access means and how the grant proposal I write should really explore and define how open I wish my proposed digital project to be.  From what was revealed this week, I need to explore the accessibility of my project as more than just whether one can log on and have free reign; I must also ponder to whom the project will be open.