Introduction
In an introductory essay to Business and Professional Communication Quarterly special issue entitled “Enabling workplaces, classrooms, and pedagogies: Bringing disability theory and accessibility to business and professional communication,” Oswal (2018) calls upon faculty members “to foreground, to demystify, and to integrate accessibility in corporate cultures and bring about organization change” within their curricula as they prepare students to facilitate and craft communication in our ever-more global village. This, the author says, is so that they keep “up with the worldwide demographic, legal, and social developments surrounding disability” (p.6). The World Health Organization (2023) estimates that 16%, or 1.3 billion people, live with significant disability, which they measure using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF). Using the same index for measurement, the European Union reported that 26.8% of residents over the age of sixteen (16) experience either some or a severe degree of disability (Eurostat). In the United States, almost 14% of the population lives with a disability (U.S. Census Bureau) although the Center for Disease Control (2024) places the rate of Americans with disabilities somewhat higher at 28.7%. While variations exist in these rates of measurement, the reality is clear that a sizeable population of end-users (and potential consumers) can encounter difficulties with access. As the deliverables created by our students, who become the technical writers and communicators of tomorrow, either begin on or find their way onto the Internet, it is essential on our part, on the part of faculty, to train digital communicators who can create content that will be easily accessible for the widest possible market.
With such a clear market share to court, creating accessible content appears to be not only an ethical but economic no-brainer. However, Dobransky and Hargittai (2016) found a digital divide in the frequency and range of activities for “people with disabilities (PWD)” as compared to individuals without disabilities. Once controlling for “background”/demographic characteristics such as age and socioeconomic status, much of this disability divide can, it might appear, be dismissed. Unfortunately, it cannot. Under- or lack of employment, increasing age, and belonging to certain racial or ethnic groups is often a feature of having a disability (Leppert & Schaeffer). In addition, Americans with disabilities statistically own less digital devices than those without disabilities by a difference of 18% across desk or laptop computers, smartphones, tablets, and broadband (Perrin & Atske). There exists, then, a considerable number of consumers who are made to feel that they do not have proper access to such devices and services even while such devices and services are increasingly necessary for everyday activities in our technological social order.
The call to integrate accessibility, or in the case of this work universal design, into the curriculum has deep roots in the dialogue concerning technical communications. The majority of scholars ground their perspective in the social justice turn in technical communication because this is regarded as the right and ethical action (Agboka 2013; Agboka, 2014; Agboka & Dorpenyo; Bennett; Bennet & Hannah; Jones 2016a; Jones 2016b; Jones et al.; Walton et al.). While I certainly and fully agree with this perspective, our rhetorical appeal for long-term change must shift from one of ethos and pathos to one of logos. Embracing accessibility, and in particular universal design, as the curricular framework for technical communication addresses not only the business needs of our students’ employers, though; it also relates to what had previously been the expanding legal requirements in the United States that are currently under attack.
Opponents of disability civil rights legislation have typically bemoaned the potential costs of achieving the standards for accessibility. The majority of the costs incurred by institutions, though, consist of either legal fees or the need to retroactively fit buildings or websites rather than coming from a starting place of open access and majority useability. One example of this would be the class action lawsuit brought by the National Federation of the Blind against Target. As part of the settlement in 2008, Target was required to provide $6 million so California residents could make claims as part of the suit. In addition, their website had to be certified via the Nonvisual Accessibility Web Certification program (Danielson). Had Target started from a place of inclusive design, the costs would have been far less than the amount that it took to address the resultant problems of their having not done so.
To this end, I borrow a question asked by Hart-Davidson. Why not us? Technical writing and digital communications—potentially a name more indicative of the kinds of work undertaken in this field—requires a collection of skills from across the academic landscape, including the humanities, social sciences, and STEM. Those same skills are also in demand across the private and public sectors (Lanier). To this end, I first describe the evolving legal landscape in which accessibility currently resides. I then provide an overview of the principles of universal design and its connections to the work already being undertaken in the field of technical communication. By embedding technical communication in the framework of universal design, we are better preparing our students for the business of technical communication, providing another integrated skill set, and fulfilling our responsibility as ethical communicators all at the same time.
Law and Access
The road to legal protections for disable individuals has presented many instances of justice as well as several roadblocks. Under President Biden the Department of Justice (2024) issued the final ruling requiring that state and local governments provide accessible websites and mobile apps, thereby bringing Title II protections of the American Disabilities Act to all communication products created for citizens, regardless of modality. As the rule also covered work created on behalf of all state and local government entities, accessibility would have likely become de rigueur in public and commercial communication content regardless of the mode of the delivery.
On January 20th of 2025, however, President Donald Trump issued the executive order entitled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” Although not included in the headline, accessibility was included in one section of the order laying out the plans for implementation, stating that leadership from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Attorney General, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) “shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government,” (The White House). Continuing the refrain of lamentation over costs of ensuring access, the Department of Justice withdrew eleven (11) current guidelines “to streaming American with Disabilities Act compliance resources for American Businesses.” Approximately half of the rollbacks relate to protections extended during the COVID-19 panic while the remainder relate to accessibility for retail, travel, and eliciting feedback from individuals with disabilities (Office of Public Affairs).
Let us take a broader view, however, and look at a bit of the history of accessibility in law. The first influential piece of legislation was the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Prior to its passage, this section of the federal code provided the vocational rehabilitation that passed with little fanfare and no objections. According to LaVor and Duncan, the new sticking point resulted from the addition of disable individuals unable to work but who would benefit from services. However “[t]his provision was a new departure for the vocational rehabilitation legislation and marked a recognition on the part of the Congress that there was a population of disabled individuals who were not being served but who could, if not become gainfully employed, at least be able to function independently.” (p. 444) While the Congress eventually passed the legislation, initial implementation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was delayed due to concerns about the “cost of compliance” from Caspar Weinberger and, later, David Mathews, both Secretaries at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (Gluck Mezey, p.13 – 14). Fears regarding the cost of accessibility have continued to be sounded in the intervening half-century, as evidenced by recent declarations by the American federal government.
After surviving two vetoes from the hand of President Richard Nixon, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 became law. Sections 501, 502, and 503 of the original statute prohibited the discrimination against applicants or current employees of the federal government and its contractors and subcontractors (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). The very powerful section 504, however, ensured that disabled individuals could not “be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal Financial assistance or under any program or activity” (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration Management). Due to the federal government dragging its bureaucratic feet, activists eventually carried out “504 Sit-Ins” in 1977 to push federal, state, and local governments to fully implement the protections promised by the section (Cone).
Opponents of the law continued to find ways to neuter its power. The most recent attack came in September of 2024 with seventeen (17) states filing a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (State of Texas v. Becerra). At the heart of the suit was a final rule issued by Secretary Becerra including gender dysphoria as a disability covered under section 504 and the ADA (Department of Health and Human Services, 2024). The seventeen (17) states, however, also asked for a ruling on the constitutionality of section 504 and its protections. After families, school districts, and disability rights activists across the seventeen (17) states expressed their concerns about the lawsuit, many of the attorneys’ generals attempted to mellow the rhetoric; the Department of Health and Human Services (2025) published a clarification stating the prior final rule “did not have the force of law” because the original legislation did not include gender dysphoria. In tandem with the aforementioned executive order from President Trump, the states are now considering how they wish to move forward and the interested parties are no longer seeking a decision on the constitutionality of Section 504 (State of Texas v. Kennedy).
One of the most important facets of the law for technical communicators, we must note, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in the 1998 amendments to the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 required federal departments and agencies to “ensure, unless an undue burden would be imposed” that electronic and information technologies be accessible. The enforcement and oversight of this would be undertaken by The Access Board created by section 502 (U.S. Access Board). Also in 1998, Section 255 of the Telecommunications act of 1996 required products be “designed, developed, and fabricated to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities” (U.S. Access Board).
Signed into law in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) went into effect in 1992 (Holmes). A stand-alone bill was required after attempts in the 1970s and 80s to add disability to the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 were unsuccessful (Dinerstein). Resistance to the 1990 protections echoed, noteworthily, those of prior laws such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; opponents declared an upcoming onslaught of “unfair and unwarranted costs on the private sector” (Tucker, p.929). The ADA, however, provided protections for employment (Title I), the use of public services (Title II), and access to public services provided by corporations (Title III).
The Universal Design Framework
Universal design (UD) calls for “the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, with the need for adoption for specialized design” (Burgstahler). Ronald L. Mace, a childhood survivor of polio who used a wheelchair from the age of 9, championed UD as model for design. As a student of architecture at North Carolina State in the 1960s, Mace had to be carried up and down stairs to attend classes. Early in his career he began to design “accessible architecture and ‘adaptable’ housing” which eventually led him to create the Center for Accessible Housing which evolved into the Center for Universal Design at his alma mater (Saxon). Mace, Hardie, and Place (1991) encouraged designers to consider of “the entire lifespan, including periods of temporary disability, of individuals who may wish to use the space or product being designed” (p. 155). Mace and his collaborators called for a point of view embracing both a universal and an adaptable point of view, since “[such elements of design] are generally no more expensive than traditional features if incorporated by the designer at the programming and conceptual stages [emphasis mine]. The cost-conscious designer must consider and advise clients…about the long-term life-cycle costs of ignoring a potentially huge segment of the market and the trend toward stricter accessibility standards in employment, housing, education, and public services.” (p. 156) Stone, Mueller, and Mace (1998) created the principles of universal design with the concepts of long-term use and adaptability in mind. What follows is an overview of each of the principles and an everyday example of how the principles can be integrated into the work of technical writers and digital communicators. Each of the seven (7) principles has supporting guidelines for implementation.
Principle 1: Equitable Use
Under the banner of the first principle, designers should: a) provide the same means of use for all users, b) avoid segregating or stigmatizing any users, c) make provisions for privacy, security, and safety equally available to all users, and d) make the design appealing to all users (pp. 46 – 50). Kimball (2013) outlines the most frequently taught and used tools in technical communication, including the principles of color and contrast. One easy way to integrate equitable use into all of our design assignments would be to require student designs to consider color design and contrast into their graphic assignments. WebAIM’s contrast checker is a resource to integrate, all too easily, into our classrooms and assignments.Principle 2: Flexibility in Use
The second principle encourages designers to: a) provide choice in methods of use, b) accommodate right- or left-handed use, c) facilitate the user’s accuracy and precision, and d) provide adaptability to the user’s pace (Stone, Mueller, and Mace, pp. 54 – 58). The very popular video sharing site YouTube exemplifies how seamlessly this principle can be integrated. By requiring reviewed and edited closed-captioning on the videos that our students create, we can easily ensure that multiple users have the option of captions whether they may have hearing issues, be non-native speakers of the presentation language, be neurodivergent, or simply prefer reading instead of, or in addition to, listening. The same concept can be applied to social media or other visual designs by requiring students to include alt text for all images (Section508.gov).Principle 3: Simple and Intuitive Use
One of the design theories embraced by the Gestalt theory of design encourages a simple and wholistic design (Kimball, 2013). Simplicity, therefore, may be one of the reigning concepts of technical communication. For Stone, Mueller, and Mace (1998), the third principle specifically asks that designers: a) eliminate unnecessary complexity, b) be consistent with user expectations and intuition, c) accommodate a wide range of literacy and language skills, d) arrange information consistent with its importance, and e) provide effective prompting and feedback during and after task completion (pp. 61 – 65). The arc of this third principle lines up with an introductory lecture on UX research. An example from the Interactive Design Foundation (2016) is their visual analysis shared here.Principle 4: Perceptible Information
Ensuring consumers of our technical writing content and digital communication are able to understand and use the information shared in our deliverables connects with our primary task as professionals. To help ensure compliance with the fourth principle, designers should: a) use different models for redundant presentation of essential information, b) maximize legibility of essential information, c) differentiate elements in ways that can be described, and d) provide compatibility with a variety of techniques or devices used by people with sensory limitations (Stone, Mueller, and Mace, pp. 68 – 71). One way to create a framework for intelligibility for our students would be incorporating the core competences from the International Institute for Information Design (IIID) (2007) when teaching writing. IIID defines information design as information helping us find our way, make informed choices, explain complex systems, find it quickly, and understand our rights and responsibilities (International Institute for Information Design, n.d.).Principle 5: Tolerance for Error
Under this section, creators should: a) arrange elements to minimize hazards and errors, b) provide warnings of hazards and errors, c) provide failsafe features, and d) discourage unconscious action in tasks that require vigilance (Stone, Mueller, and Mace, pp. 74 – 77). This principle echoes the drive for error prevention and recognition rather than recall in Nielsen’s heuristics for interaction design (Nielsen, 2024).Principle 6: Low Physical Effort
In the penultimate principle, designers need to: a) allow users to maintain a neutral bodily position, b) use reasonable operating forces, c) minimize repetitive actions, and d) minimize sustained physical effort (Stone, Mueller, and Mace, pp. 80 – 83). Although principle 6 may not appear to naturally fold into the work of technical writers and digital communicators, one need only slightly fold the curtain back and take into account the wider breadth of user and consumer experiences. Individuals living with conditions such as arthritis, for example, are expected to number over 78 million residents of the United States by 2040 or over a quarter of the national population (Arthritis Foundation). Allowing users both keyboard-based shortcuts and the use of mouse when interacting with content such as a training module would mitigate, by no small or insignificant amount, the pain that users could or would otherwise experience. This improved accessibility in turn would mean more consumers or users feeling able and willing to access the content provided by a given business or agency, thus increasing the given business’s profit margins/Principle 7: Size and Space for Approach and Use
The final principle calls for: a) a clear line of sight to important elements for any seated or standing user, b) making all components easily reachable for either sitting or standing users, c) accommodating variations in hand and grip size, and d) providing adequate space for the use of assistive devices or personal assistance (Stone, Mueller, and Mace, pp. 86 – 89). In the International Design Foundation (2016) overview of the principles of universal design, manipulation area is now included in this standard. The aforementioned inclusion becomes important when we are teaching our students about web and interface design. As we all know, adaptive web design must be considered as consumers access our content across different device types. Interfaces, even when appropriately resized to a particular device, may still present difficulties for users if input fields or buttons are too small for a user. Why needlessly impede the access to a service of a given user who might otherwise be quite eager to give his or her time, attention, and money to said service?Discussion
The heart of the concept, a perceived one-size-fits all, draws the largest area of critique. Bennett and Hannah (2022), in their call for a disability justice framework, highlights the individually embodied experience of disability (p. 332 – 333). Since the emphasis circles on making the best product that provides benefits for everyone (such as including a curb ramp at a street crossing), it encourages erasure of the specific needs and ignores the reality needs may not always drive preferences (Pullin, p. 67). Walters (2010), however, highlights the reality that many disabilities are invisible and by encouraging students “to address only specific disabilities in their communications with diverse audiences and therefore miss opportunities to consider accessibility more broadly” (p. 429). What seems to be missing from the larger discussion is a deep dive into UD as a methodology in tandem with the original call for adaptability embedding individual needs in a universal design (Mace, Hardie, & Place, 160 – 165). UD, therefore, presents an opportunity for technical writing and digital communication as the deliverables address a wide swath of user needs and wants (Hitt, p. 56).
Due to technical communication’s professional orientation and emphasis on praxis, the field presents an untapped opportunity to fulfill the ethical concerns of the practitioners on behalf of organizations and users. For Palmeri (2006), the interconnectedness of employment protections provided by the ADA and the “workplace discourse practices” of technical communication informed his early appeal to integrate the perspective in the discipline (p. 51). Due to ways in which technical communicators have a hand in the “construction of normalcy” through their daily praxis because of the range of documents we crate as well as our investment in information design, we “can continue to reimagine the filed in ways that productively contribute to the material social changes necessary to create a more equitable, accessible society” (p. 65). As Helig (2023) outlines in her survey of the work disability studies scholars in the field, the beginning concerns of faculty and practitioners included the need to produce design which accommodate users, creating content for adaptive technology, as well as creating best practices for implementation (p. 403).
Conclusion
As the gains made by disability and accessibility activists are under fire by the Trump administration, it becomes even more important for faculty and practitioners to integrate frameworks like universal design into our classrooms and deliverables. Mace, Hardie, and Place (1991) lay the “solution” at the feet of designers to ensure that universal design “develop fully and become an integral part” of the work we do. By including it in courses, instructors can help universal design to become “a major focus within the context of the overall design projects so that students will think of accessibility issues in the conceptual design stage” (p. 174)
Technical communication is a growth-oriented field with expectations of at least a 4% increase each year (Occupational Outlook Handbook). This estimate is likely quite low, in fact, due to the permeability of the range of activities under the skill umbrella of a technical writer and communicator (Henning & Bemer). As referenced previously, the fields of disability studies and accessibility share much soil with the work of technical communicators. Growth is another feature the two share. In Crip theory: Cultural signs of queerness and disability, McRuer writes, “Everyone is virtually disabled, both in the sense that able-bodied norms are ‘intrinsically impossible to embody’ fully and in the sense that able-bodied status is always temporary, disability being the one identity category that all people will embody if they live long enough.” (p. 30) Indeed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2024), our rates of disability grow exponentially as we age. Starting at 0.8% for the population under 5, the percentage blossoms to nearly half at 45.9% of all Americans who reach 75 and above.
Disability is also a category, whether we realize it or not, which nearly all of us move in and out of as we experience life events such as accidents, illness, and, if we are lucky, aging. Finally, Mace, Hardie, and Place (1991), giving a nod to the ethical and social justice aspect of the issue of universal design, highlight a critical secondary involved in “isolating people with disabilities,” since “it becomes clear that ignoring the issue can have a qualitative as well as quantitative impact on all members of our society” (p. 168). Are those producers who are quick to complain about the burdensome costs of adjusting their services, websites, and products to fit accessibility standards cognizant of the losses of revenue and social capital that stand to be suffered as a result of a simple refusal to incorporate the basic principles outlined? As Bennett (2022) notes, our work “has far-reaching sociopolitical implications due to its influence on intuitional behaviors and ideals” (p. 226). I believe now is one of those moments to exert it.
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Professor Karen Sichler 