This post is co-authored by Katie Duncan, Rhiannon Hall and Jenny Wallace.
At UTS, we aim to create an inclusive and accessible learning environment for all students. Staff are often encouraged to design their courses with a wide range of students in mind, informed by principles of universal design for learning, accessible and inclusive practices. But what does that actually look like in practice? What do students with disabilities and access requirements experience during their time at UTS? These are critical questions for the UTS Student Experience Framework.
To help bridge this gap, the Education Portfolio and the Accessibility Service have developed a series of personas representing students with various access requirements, which can now be seen in our Accessible Personas resource collection. These personas were co-created with students with lived experience of disability from the Student Learning Advisory Committee (SLAC), ensuring they reflect authentic experiences and insights.
What are accessible personas?
This collection contains eight resources with different student personas, all of which have different conditions and their own accessibility requirements. Each accessible persona resource contains these requirements, plus common frustrations that this persona might run into during their learning journey.
Our personas include:
- Andy – has anxiety and depression
- Coen – has colour vision deficiency
- Hao – is hard of hearing
- Mai – has a medical condition (endometriosis)
- Mohan – has a condition that impacts mobility
- Nasim – is neurodivergent (ADHD)
- Nerina – is neurodivergent (autism)
- Vinh – has vision loss
How these personas were created
The process began with the Student Learning Advisory Committee, also known as SLAC. This was a genuine process of codesign, where the members of SLAC were able to shape the output and make their own contributions. From here, the team also consulted with other stakeholders on the drafts created in the SLAC sessions.
One of the most common themes running through the personas is one of anxiety and worry – that to be a student with a disability means barriers are inevitable. All of the persona characters (and by extension, the students who made them) carry the concern that their accessibility requirements will not be recognised or accommodated. They worry about being dismissed or socially rejected because of their disabilities.
Often when people talk to us about wanting to learn about accessibility, it can seem like it’s going to be a large and complex undertaking. And there is some truth to that – accessible practices are often not integrated into most forms of learning or training, so a lot of the concepts can feel new and alien. Looking at the WCAG guidelines as a newcomer can feel like trying to read in a different language you’ve never studied. It’s understandable that something like accessibility can feel out of scope for anyone who is already too busy in their job.
But another stand out theme from our SLAC sessions was this – often students felt welcomed and as if they belonged in a subject simply because a tutor or lecturer listened to them and made an effort to accommodate accessibility requirements, even if they weren’t sure of everything. Students don’t expect staff to be experts in accessibility, they can take care of the technical aspects as long as a pathway is left open for them.
How to use the accessible personas
The idea is not to memorise these different personas or their conditions or unique accessibility requirements (especially because while two people might have the same condition, their accessibility requirements can differ according to preferences or circumstance). Instead, consider these personas as an introduction to some of the students you may encounter in your classes, along with some of the accessibility requirements you might be informed of by students or by the Accessibility Service.
The persona collection is also not exhaustive when it comes to different disabilities or chronic illnesses and their accompanying accessibility requirements, that you may encounter in the learning and teaching community.
Whether you were directed to these personas through a workshop, a link from Accessibility, or stumbled upon them while seeking to improve your teaching practices, here are some tips to get the most out of them:
- Understand the personas: Start by familiarising yourself with the personas, understanding their unique requirements and frustrations.
- Reflect on your practice: Consider how your teaching practices might help alleviate or inadvertently add to these frustrations. Remember, accessible and inclusive practices are a learning curve.
- Identify your sphere of influence: Determine what changes you can make within your sphere of influence to be more intentionally inclusive and accessible.
- Implement changes: Based on your reflections, make the necessary changes to your practice.
- Seek feedback: Continuously seek feedback from your students to improve your teaching practices.
- Repeat: This is an ongoing process. Keep refining your practices to ensure they remain inclusive and accessible.
Visit the Accessible Personas collection on Education Express resources.