Introduction
In this blog post, Digital Accessibility Intern David Buik reflects on his part-time work as a Digital Accessibility Intern over the past academic year, discussing a few challenges he faced as well as his key takeaways and successes.
Summary
Last summer, I was in the same position as I am now: a full-time Digital Accessibility Intern. Between then and now, however, I had the pleasure of continuing in the position on a part-time schedule, working seven hours a week. It was a great opportunity and it also posed a few challenges. This reflection attempts to capture both aspects of the experience.
A threefold challenge
Gigantic platforms
My main assignment was to perform accessibility audits of Wooclap and PebblePad, to ensure that they each had up-to-date accessibility statements. Both platforms are substantial services, which contrasted sharply with what I was used to testing: websites within the Interactive Content Service, most of which consisted of only a few pages. I knew it would be a challenge, but that is also why I was looking forward to it.
Wooclap – Information services | Learning technology
PebblePad – Information services | Learning technology
Seven-hour weeks
It would be remiss of me not to mention that it was difficult to get used to seven-hour weeks. Of course, having only one typical full-time day of work to complete in a week meant that it was relatively easy to fit working time into my study schedule. On the other hand, working only seven hours a week meant that a task which would have taken me a week during the summer would now take over a month to complete. This made collaboration with colleagues more challenging than ever before.
This last disadvantage, however, was mitigated by the fact that most of the collaboration involved in accessibility testing – namely sending documents over to the Disability Information Team and addressing comments – is an asynchronous process.
Losing Argyle House
Part-time working from home
Working from home was another aspect of my assignment I was not fully prepared for. I had done some work from home during the summer and had been happy doing so in a full-time context, but I quickly learned that applying this to part-time work was not so straightforward. This was particularly the case because there were not many consistent gaps in my timetable, and the gaps that were long enough for focused work often moved around from week to week.
The brutalising loss of Argyle House
I am grateful that my line manager, Stewart Cromar, was so flexible and allowed me to work whenever suited me best. Around the time when we were relocating from Argyle House to Forrest Hill, I had just about got used to coming into the office for an afternoon or two and doing the rest of my hours on a Friday. Then came around a month between the closing of Argyle House and the opening of Forrest Hill where we didn’t have an office to go to. While I was aware of arrangements for people who did need office space, I did not consider myself in that category.
Fitting routine around an ever-changing timetable
The main challenge for me in working from home was establishing a regular schedule. Trying to balance working towards both the start of the week and the end of the week, so that I could respond to correspondence in a timely way, was an interesting challenge. It was hardest when it came to the middle of the week, when I had a few gaps in my day, and knew that I could use any of them for either leisure or work, while still having a certain number of hours left to complete. It was often tricky to decide, so I found myself opting for a nap instead and would end up completing most of my hours at the last possible moment – on Friday.
Conclusions
From my work over the last year, I have learned that the advantage of flexibility is not that it removes the need for a regular schedule, but rather that it allows that schedule to be better moulded around one’s day-to-day life. In the end, I did manage to complete the work I was hired to do. I am pleased that Wooclap – which I have personally used in lectures – and PebblePad are compliant in their accessibility documentation, and I am looking forward to seeing other practical improvements which may result from this work.
Accessibility Statements for Wooclap
Accessibility Statements for PebblePad
Finally, I hope that this post does not discourage anyone from this kind of part-time remote work, but rather that my experience may help others who feel similarly, and remind anyone taking up this kind of work of how powerful routine can be.
An aside about Talking Scores
In one of my previous blog posts, linked below, I promised to give an update on my Talking Scores pull request if I had one. While I don’t have direct news on the request itself, I wrote an email to the Talking Scores team. I expressed my appreciation for their project, explained my motivation to participate and detailed the nature of my pull request. I received a reply from one of the contributors, Peter Marchant, who explained his own background and confirmed that the other main contributor would have a look at my submission in due course. He noted that the changes are substantial and will require significant review time. Although it has almost been a year with no further news, I remain hopeful and still have a usable, local version with all my changes applied.
Educated Prompting – DLAM blog
Peter Marchant – Personal Website
