The book “Accessible research and teaching at universities” offers valuable recommendations for the barrier-free design of universities for researchers and teachers with disabilities or chronic illnesses. It is aimed at university management and university staff who are responsible for structural measures, digital channels, lecture halls and diversity offices.
Potential barriers can be identified and specifically removed with the help of checklists. Without such a holistic approach, those affected often have to find individual solutions for their needs, which causes unnecessary stress and additional effort. This allows universities to consider the needs of all people and provide an inclusive environment.
While the book focuses on accessible universities, we talk to the author Alireza Darvishy in our podcast Schampar digital (in German) about digital accessibility in everyday life. Digital accessibility deals with the research and development of digital technologies for people with disabilities (e.g. hearing impairment or dyslexia) and for older people. In this episode, we often use examples of people with visual impairments.
In the current episode, we talk about “Digital Accessibility for All”, the Cybathlon and how technology can be used to make everyday life easier for people with disabilities. What solutions already exist and what needs to change?
Alireza Darvishy is a professor at the ZHAW School of Engineering with a research focus on human-centered computing. He heads the ICT-Accessibility Lab. This is where information and communication technologies for older people and people with disabilities are researched and developed.
A barrier-free PDF in just a few steps: PAVE makes PDF documents accessible so that they can be correctly interpreted by common reading programs.
For the Cybathlon, teams develop assistive technologies suitable for everyday use with and for people with disabilities and compete against each other. The next edition will take place in Zurich in October.