Course Description
DMD 3998 examines accessibility and inclusion in interactive media through critique, applied production, and collaborative challenge work. Students build fluency in standards, policy, and practical design decisions while learning how to make persuasive evidence-based accessibility judgments.
Accessibility here is not treated as a side topic. It is part of the course's core design process, and it is revisited through reading, testing, research, making, revision, and critique across the semester.
Course Format and Approach
The course is organized around modules, sessions, challenges, and class work rather than fixed calendar weeks. A module may take one, two, or more class sessions depending on class progress, holidays, cancellations, particularly productive investigations, and other instructional needs.
The course website is the primary instructional hub for today/current course activity, modules, sessions, challenges, the Field Guide, readings and authoritative resources, accessibility tools and demonstrations, sample interactive experiences, assignment information, archived class work, and course information.
HuskyCT/Blackboard remains the official location for grades, assignment submission, quizzes, the official syllabus, and other official LMS functions. The Laravel site complements that system; it does not replace it.
Learning Objectives
- Explain core accessibility frameworks and inclusive design concepts.
- Analyze interfaces using legal, standards, and institutional perspectives.
- Communicate remediation priorities with clear evidence and rationale.
- Use accessibility tools, standards references, and AI critically rather than uncritically.
- Distinguish accessibility claims from unsupported assumptions, opinions, or automated outputs.
Accessibility Standards and Legal Context
Students study accessibility through multiple sources of authority: legal requirements, technical standards such as WCAG, and institutional policy. The course emphasizes distributed inquiry followed by collective synthesis so that students can explain not only what a standard says, but why it matters and what it can and cannot prove.
Module 01 introduces the Legal Lens, Standards Lens, and Institutional Lens. Later modules continue that pattern by connecting visual design, media, interaction, structure, cognition, and AI practice to standards-based evaluation and remediation.
Course Website and Tools
The course website is designed as a working studio and reference library. It includes Today, Modules, Sessions, Challenges, the Field Guide, sample experiences, and archived class work so students can revisit the course structure while studying or preparing for quizzes and the final project.
The site also hosts demonstrations, study references, and sample interactive experiences used during accessibility investigation. These are instructional materials, not official grade records or the source of formal course policy.
- Today / current course activity
- Modules
- Sessions
- Challenges
- Field Guide
- Readings and authoritative resources
- Accessibility tools and demonstrations
- Sample interactive experiences
- Archived Class Work / team deliverables
Team Challenges
The class uses persistent teams for distributed inquiry followed by collective synthesis. Different teams may investigate different dimensions of a shared problem, such as legal requirements, technical standards, institutional policy, user impact, technical implementation, or testing.
Team membership is assigned and managed in HuskyCT/Blackboard. The course website may refer to team identities and team challenge work, but it is not the source of team membership records.
The course includes 10 team challenges. These are team challenges or module challenges, not weekly challenges, and they are not tied to a rigid calendar schedule. Teams investigate, test, discuss, and then produce a concise deliverable that can later be archived as shared study material in the module's Class Work area.
Teams generally do not give formal presentations for each challenge. Instead, challenges are used to support investigation, critique, and synthesis.
Challenge and Studio Rhythm
A typical challenge may include:
- review or critique of previous class work;
- introduction of a new problem or question;
- guided investigation;
- authoritative-source research;
- use of accessibility tools and AI;
- design, testing, and prototyping;
- instructor consultation;
- completion and submission of a team deliverable.
Completed team work may later be added to the appropriate module's Class Work archive so students can review all three team approaches while studying or revisiting course concepts.
Quizzes
The course includes 3 individual quizzes. These quizzes emphasize application, reasoning, accessibility scenarios, WCAG concepts, remediation, distinguishing accessibility from compliance, identifying unsupported claims, and interpreting markup or interface behavior.
Quizzes are checkpoints for reading and reasoning, not memorization exercises. They ask students to explain how evidence supports an accessibility judgment.
Final Project
The final project receives approximately the final two weeks of instructional time. Students independently apply the course process: Investigate → identify barriers → establish evidence → prioritize → redesign → test → defend.
The point of the project is not merely to check accessibility boxes. Students are expected to make an experience meaningfully better and provide convincing evidence for that work.
Grading
| Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| 10 Team Challenges | 40% |
| 3 Individual Quizzes | 30% |
| Individual Final Project | 30% |
Working Module Roadmap
The module sequence and pacing are subject to change based on class progress, emerging technologies, cancellations, and particularly productive areas of investigation. Modules are not tied to specific calendar weeks. All substantive changes will be communicated to students.
Module 01 — Accessible According to Whom?
Central question: What does it actually mean to call a digital experience accessible?
Module 02 — Can You See What Matters?
Central question: Can users perceive and understand the information an interface is trying to communicate?
Module 03 — What Does This Media Say?
Central question: How should information conveyed through images, audio, video, and other media be made available in other forms?
Module 04 — Can You Use It Your Way?
Central question: Can users successfully operate an interface using different methods of input and interaction?
Module 05 — What Happens When Something Goes Wrong?
Central question: Can users understand, complete, and recover from an interaction when something goes wrong?
Module 06 — What Does the Interface Sound Like?
Central question: What does an interface communicate when the visual presentation is no longer the primary interface?
Module 07 — Why Is This So Hard to Use?
Central question: Can an experience technically satisfy accessibility requirements and still be unnecessarily difficult or exclusionary?
Module 08 — The AI Says It's Accessible. Is It?
Central question: What can AI and automated tools actually determine about accessibility, and what still requires human judgment or testing?
Module 09 — Build the Accessible Version
Central question: What changes when accessibility is treated as a design and development requirement from the beginning?
Module 10 — What Would You Fix First?
Central question: How should accessibility problems be prioritized when everything cannot be fixed at once?
Synthesis, assessment, and final studio time are woven around the challenge sequence. In practice, the course also includes:
- Quiz #1, Quiz #2, and Quiz #3 at appropriate checkpoints;
- synthesis of accessibility evaluation methods;
- automated versus manual testing;
- sustainable accessibility and design systems;
- organizational accessibility;
- emerging AI practices;
- advanced assistive-technology work;
- flexible catch-up studio time where useful;
- preparation for the final project;
- approximately two weeks of final-project studio, critique, testing, refinement, and presentation.
Artificial Intelligence / Generative AI
AI output is not evidence that something is accessible.
Generative AI may be used unless an assignment says otherwise. Students must disclose meaningful use, verify important claims, and be able to explain their process when asked. AI can help with research, explanation, critique, drafting, and exploration, but it cannot replace evidence, testing, or the student's responsibility for the work.
Privacy and data considerations still apply. Students should not paste sensitive or private information into external tools unless explicitly permitted by the assignment or instructor guidance. If an assignment limits AI use or requires a particular method, those instructions take precedence.
The course maintains academic-integrity expectations around sources, process, and authorship. When AI use is unclear, students may be asked to explain how it was used, what sources informed the work, and what testing supports the final submission.
How I Use Generative AI
I use generative AI in course design, exercises, scenarios, examples, drafting and revising materials, example interfaces or code, and in exploring accessibility problems and possible solutions for the course website content.
I do not use AI to independently evaluate student work or determine grades. AI can help me draft, test, and refine instructional materials, but the instructional judgment remains mine.