Universal Design at the University of Toronto: Creating Accessible Designs
In order to create a university that is universally accessible, it is crucial to ensure all areas of the student experience are accessible to every student from the outset of their time at the university to their graduation and beyond.
Fall/Winter 2020-2021
What are students’ diverse needs and how could they be accessibly met?
With a population of over 93,000 students at the university of Toronto, this task is a challenge. It involves considering the experiences of all students, including students with different levels of ability, learning needs, and identified disabilities. The Innovation Hub takes an equity-driven, human-centered approach to understanding the student experience through empathy-based and story-based interviewing techniques. For this project, we collected stories from students with disabilities as well as support staff at UofT.
KEY FINDINGS
Centering students with disabilities at the university benefits everyone’s learning.
The current barriers that students face in their learning and in seeking accessibility support are rooted in the current university-wide approach. This approach makes accessibility a secondary matter as opposed to building it centrally into university design. We found this key finding in three themes:
- Learning About Diverse Needs
- Learning About Barriers
- Learning About Support
Universal design at UofT aims to center all students, thereby creating an inclusive, accessible, and equitable environment that works with all students.
