As our Scholars' Lab charter indicates, we are committed to making our projects and spaces accessible—in all meanings of that word—for everyone, regardless of ability or need. We believe accessibility is not an implementation that can be finished and done, but rather a way of thinking and working that can—and should—always be improved.
Web accessibility
In terms of web accessibility, we strive to make our the built environment of the Scholars' Lab website and social media pleasant, easy to access, and ADA-compliant.
For this website, we follow WCAG 2.2 AA standard or better, and Section 508 guidelines. Our markup and presentation adhere to W3G's standards for HTML5 and CSS3, and in doing so include many features meant to enhance the accessibility of our site, including:
- Correct ordering of headings to aid in navigation;
- Alternative text for media where appropriate;
- A skip link at the beginning of each page to jump to the page's main content;
- ARIA roles to better describe the purpose and content of various parts of our pages;
- Alt text for images
We use several tools to assess accessibility on our site, including the Wave evaluation tool by WebAIM and Pa11y command line interface tool by Nature Publishing Group.
We strive to follow similar practices on all our websites and when consulting and teaching about web design, aiming not for the legal minimum but for the best experience for all.
On our social media, we strive to always use good descriptive alt text on images.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or encounter anything that hinders your use of the content or tool we provide, please email us.
Physical accessibility
Illness
If you have questions about or anticipate any issues with full access of our space and services, please contact us so we can help. We appreciate knowing where we can make improvements to increase our accessibility. Letting us know also allows us to put stories and numbers in support of accessibility improvements the university is aware are needed, but which don't yet have funding and/or are farther down the queue than other projects.UVA does not currently require in classrooms or public spaces, though these recomain recommended as an effective precautionary measure against spreading COVID-19, colds, flus, and other illnesses that can range from inconvenient to disabling or worse, especially for colleagues who are immunocompromised.
You can be contagious and not have any symptoms; home COVID tests are not 100% accurate. Please keep this in mind when we share space together. If you are feeling ill, we ask that you not attend events in our space; please contact us to request virtual consultation or event attendance options.
We have extra masks available for attendees of events in our space who want one.
Mobility, distance, & space use
Directions on accessing our space are available on our "Use the Lab" page.
Our new makerspace room (Shannon 308i) was designed with physical access in mind, and includes options like worktables that can be raised and lowered to wheelchair sitting and standing heights. Please contact Makerspace Manager Ammon Shepherd if you have questions about physical makerspace access.
Some doors in the Shannon Library building do not currently offer push-button door-openers. These include several of our public doors, most of which we prop open during work hours (makerspace, consultation room, both entrances, grad office, doors between Text Aisle and Common Room). The door into our staff workroom space, behind which are several staff offices and our grad office, doesn't have a door-opener button and cannot be left propped open (due to the interior containing non-public space).
Ongoing learning & research on accessibility
Accessibility is an area of staff research interest, in addition to a broader commitment of the lab we strive for in all our work. For example, accessible and universal design are major components of our Praxis Program's DesignLab semester-long course, taught annually by Head of R&D Jeremy Boggs. Jeremy was also an instructor for the Building an Accessible Future for the Humanities Project. Director Amanda Wyatt Visconti was a project team member and developer (at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities) on the Making the Digital Humanities More Open projects' development of a WordPress Braille plugin, allowing the vast amount of digital humanities WP-hosted content to become more easily Braille-readable.
Below are our research blog posts related to accessibility: