Team:Manchester/Inclusivity
Our team focused on inclusivity and diversity through:
- Developing an accessibility bar for our Wiki, which makes the website customisable by font size and font style and includes a dark mode and read aloud option. This would allow people who require screen-readers, those with visual impairments and neurodivergent people to customise the pages based on their needs.
- Using other aspects of our Wiki design to increase the accessibility of our scientific project through using alt text and making the background colour an off-white. This was done to lessen the contrast, making the text more readable.
- Involving stakeholders from three low to middle income countries to include their perspectives on the problems of CAUTIs, current catheter coatings and their ideas about the best features that could be included in a novel catheter coating.
- Reflecting on how our project could eliminate barriers in accessing science for future and present generations of people who are suffering from the effects of climate change. Climate change is and will continue putting people at risk and causing a rapidly rising number of climate refugees. Due to this, we must eliminate barriers for future generation access to science through working towards incorporating the idea of the circular economy into our future company. This is because the current extract-manufacture-use-landfill system is unsustainable and exacerbates climate change.
The Global Diversity Practice defines diversity and inclusion as “empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different, in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education, and national origin”(1). Global Diversity Practice (GDP) is a consulting company that improves the diversity and inclusion of businesses from HR to how they conduct outreach programmes(2). An example of incorporating diversity and inclusion into science and industry could be to include feedback from both younger and older stakeholders. A case study that Global Diversity Practice uses is that of Halma, an environmental technology company, whereby the GDP incorporated and ran workshops on Unconscious Bias training for Halma’s employees, spreading awareness about diversity and inclusion (3, 4).
Team: Manchester decided to focus on inclusion through creating an accessibility bar that makes the Wiki customisable for people who are differently abled such as people with visual impairments, those who require screen readers, those who have dyslexia and neurodivergent people. The customisable Wiki will allow a wider audience to access the knowledge about our novel technology. Moreover, we focused on diversity and eliminating barriers to science through communicating with stakeholders from low and middle income countries (LMICs), namely Mexico and Uganda. This gave them the opportunity to have their input on the development of a novel medical technology and we are grateful for their feedback. Finally, we reflected on what we could do as a future company to incorporate the circular economy advantage into our manufacturing processes to ensure the continued access to science for future generations.
Accessibility Bar and Wiki Design
In the centre of the image, you can find the three font styles we wanted to include in our font style options: a geometric font, a default and a rounded font for people with dyslexia. We found Open Dyslexic, a font style specifically designed for people with dyslexia and we chose to incorporate that into our font style menu (5). On the bottom left hand side of the image above, you will find a little black circle with a gear icon instead it. This is how the accessibility bar would look when closed.
Inconsiderate website design can impact people through reducing access to the knowledge base they need to fulfil jobs, seize opportunities and even stay connected with peers.
Issues around accessible website design have a broad scope.
Below is a list of the problems people might face in accessing websites, adapted from the Website Accessibility Initiative(6):
- Website design that does not consider people with disabilities such as visual, auditory impairments and neurodivergence.
- The internet speed and the lack of access to quality hardware and software can reduce accessibility to websites.
- Socio-economic factors such as location, ethnicity, age, language and education can be barriers to accessing knowledge in the virtual environment.
Inspiration
From our experiences of struggling or feeling overwhelmed with poorly designed websites, we decided to curate our Wiki with accessibility in mind. To better understand what accessibility means and how we should do this, we took inspiration from Team:Waterloo 2020 (7). They created a booklet about accessible wiki design and incorporated an accessibility bar into their Wiki. We took inspiration from this through deciding to code an accessibility bar which would differ from theirs through including font size, read aloud and keyboard shortcuts. We spoke to stakeholders to learn more about how we can develop this accessibility bar and improve on it.
Interviews and Feedback
UK Government Guidelines on Accessibility
We read the UK government guidelines on accessibility. Below is an image of posters presenting the Dos and Don'ts of creating accessible websites (8).
The posters were created by Karwai Pun, working as a senior designer at the Home Office and part of the Home Office’s accessibility group. There were two questions that these posters raised.
- To what extent are the government-set accessibility guidelines accurate?
- How to incorporate this advice in an efficient and clear way?
To come to grips with these questions, we decided to host an interview with The Disabled Society at the Student Union and an interview with Rosalind Bell, a New technology Coordinator, both at the University of Manchester.
Interviewing the Disabled Society, University of Manchester
We interviewed the chair of the Disabled Society. The interview gave us invaluable pointers about designing for accessibility. The representative spoke about how it is inappropriate to try to target specific types of disabilities. Instead, we should ensure everyone can use the website to a good standard. Designing the website with accessibility in mind from the start was was discussed and encouraged. From the interview, we made the decision to focus on customising our website in terms of font style and font size. The representative advised us to try incorporating at least three different font options - default, geometric fonts for some neurodivergent people and rounded fonts for people with dyslexia. After the meeting, we discovered Open Dyslexic, a font designed specifically for dyslexic people and decided to use it as a font style option (9). The representative additionally stressed the importance of writing alt text, which we incorporated into our Wiki design. Additionally, we started considering creating different stylesheets for the eight different types of colour blindness and wanted to bring this up in our next interview (10).
Rosalind Bell Interview, New Technology Coordinator, Alan Gilbert Commons
Our meeting with Rosalind Bell, a new technology coordinator at Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, was equally important. She advised us to avoid white backgrounds, opting instead for an off-white (#f6f6f6 hex code). This would reduce the contract and make the website more readable to the users. Plain white or black backgrounds create too high a contrast (11, 12). Additionally, Bell suggested that our colour schemes already cater to those with colour blindness, hence that we should focus on creating a well-established accessibility bar. Taking inspiration from Waterloo 2020’s code alongside the bubble menu of Team:Vilnius-Lithuania 2020, we set out to create an accessibility bar which features a Read Aloud; Font Size; Font Style and Dark Mode function (13).
Outcome
Below, you can find the design of our accessibility bar. As you can see, it has the options we discussed above:
- The read aloud option
- Dark Mode
- The customisable font size and font style.
We managed to code the accessibility bar with it fully functioning when testing it outside of the Wiki. However, we were not able to make it fully functioning on the Wiki. We encourage other teams to develop our work on this, take our code and make it functional across all browsers to improve user experience.
Inclusion of Stakeholders from different economic backgrounds
Scientific communities in low and middle income countries face a lot of barriers in conducting research and development initiatives into new technologies. These obstacles are multi-faceted from lacking in resources to dependency on higher income countries (HICs) for research and other programmes (14). Studies have shown that 80% of the research spending is shared by only 10 countries with lower income countries being severely underrepresented in novel technology development with the G8 group of countries accounting for 98% of the most highly cited research papers(15, 16). These structural problems are not easy to target and solve and Team: Manchester was not under the illusion that we would solve these problems. Team: Manchester wanted to incorporate stakeholder opinions from low and middle income countries using our network to gain a better understanding of the perspectives of stakeholders from underrepresented groups on our project design and idea. We interviewed two doctors from Mexico and seven Ugandan doctors and researchers, who gave us valuable feedback. We were particularly shocked by the lack of understanding and knowledge about the existence of catheter coatings in all cases. These interactions led us to research questions surrounding care quality and treatment in low-, middle- and high-income countries. If we decide to continue as a start-up, we plan to further this research and continue to include stakeholders from a diverse range of countries.
The Circular Economy and Future Generations
Climate change is having an enormous impact globally and the countries who have contributed least to the crisis are the ones most affected (17). They are disproportionately affected by climate disasters. As a team, we have reflected on how our project might impact patients, stakeholders and scientists now and in the generations to come in relation to the climate change crisis. Addressing climate change requires an integrative approach and we as a team have considered what we could do to take a step closer to a more sustainable future. The information is on our Entrepreneurship page as we believe in taking a more holistic approach on sustainability and how we can be more inclusive towards the communities of the future.
References
- Global Diversity Practice Ltd. What is Diversity & Inclusion? - Global Diversity Practice [Internet]. Global Diversity Practice. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://globaldiversitypractice.com/what-is-diversity-inclusion/
- Global Diversity Practice Ltd. Our Story - Global Diversity Practice [Internet]. Global Diversity Practice. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://globaldiversitypractice.com/about-us/our-story/
- Global Diversity Practice Ltd. HALMA - Global Diversity Practice [Internet]. Global Diversity Practice. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://globaldiversitypractice.com/case-studies/halma/
- Halma plc. Home [Internet]. Halma.com. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.halma.com/
- (WAI) W. Accessibility, Usability, and Inclusion [Internet]. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). 2016 [cited 11 October 2021]. Available from: https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-usability-inclusion/
- class="model-li3">Home | OpenDyslexic [Internet]. Opendyslexic.org. 2021 [cited 22 September 2021]. Available from: https://opendyslexic.org/
- Team:Waterloo/Inclusion - 2020.igem.org [Internet]. 2020.igem.org. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://2020.igem.org/Team:Waterloo/Inclusion
- Pun K. Dos and don'ts on designing for accessibility - Accessibility in government [Internet]. Accessibility.blog.gov.uk. 2016 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/
- Home | OpenDyslexic [Internet]. Opendyslexic.org. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://opendyslexic.org/
- Types of Colour Blindness - Colour Blind Awareness [Internet]. Colour Blind Awareness. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/types-of-colour-blindness/#:~:text=The%208%25%20of%20colour%20blind,moderate%20or%20severe%20anomalous%20conditions.
- Gabriel-Petit P. Color Theory for Digital Displays: A Quick Reference: Part II :: UXmatters [Internet]. Uxmatters.com. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2006/01/color-theory-for-digital-displays-a-quick-reference-part-ii.php
- Colors on the Web > Color Theory > Color Contrast [Internet]. Colorsontheweb.com. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: http://www.colorsontheweb.com/Color-Theory/Color-Contrast
- Team: Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM. Team:Vilnius-Lithuania - 2020.igem.org [Internet]. 2020.igem.org. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://2020.igem.org/Team:Vilnius-Lithuania
- Acharya K, Pathak S. Applied Research in Low-Income Countries: Why and How?. Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. 2019;4.
- How much does your country invest in R&D? [Internet]. [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: http://uis.unesco.org/apps/visualisations/research-and-development-spending/
- King, D. The scientific impact of nations. Nature 430, 311–316 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/430311a
- Chino T, Johnston D, Benn H, Kabbaj O, Malloch Brown M, Nielson P et al. Poverty and Climate Change Reducing the Vulnerability of the Poor through Adaptation [Internet]. Oecd.org. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.oecd.org/env/cc/2502872.pdf