Accessibility

Accessibility refers to convenience of use and access to education, research and related support services regardless of the diverse qualities of individuals. The accessible operating environment of Aalto is enabling and inclusive as our operations reflect the interactions, learning, research and work of all members of the Aalto community. Through its work on accessibility, Aalto University creates high-quality, barrier-free and efficient services and related support systems for research, education and academic management (Aalto University strategy).

The enabling environment of the Accessible Aalto will be executed with the following principles:

• We are proactive developers in accessibility issues.
• We improve equality in all our functions and teams.
• Aalto community members are encouraged to suggests improvements to the obstacles and hindraces they observe in daily activities.
• We will favour positive attitudes to accessibility and augment the know-how by discourse and continuous learning.
• We apply the principles of sustainable development to the accessible Aalto.

The terms accessibility and barrier-free design are commonly used interchangeably. However, they differ to some extent:

• Accessibility refers to the degree to which the environment, products, and services are accessible to people with different abilities.
• Barrier-free describes the effort of removing physical barriers from the "built environment" for people with disabilities. Barrier-free design addresses the issue of access. Barrier-free design focuses on disability and accommodating people with disabilities in the physical environment.

Practical promotion of the accessibility requirements is quite simple:

• Save your word, powerpoint, excel and pdf files in accessible format by the built-in tools of the programmes
• Use styles in headlines and write simple and clear headlines dividing the body text in sections with logical subheadings
• Write helpful link texts with a meaning
• Learn to writhe good alt texts: Describe the image as specifically as possible. Alt text provides text explanations of images for users who are unable to see them.
• Write subtitles/captions for your video presentations

Thus, it is quite easy to follow accessibility requirements in daily work. Learn to use built-in styles in your Word of PowerPoint documents. This simple change in personal writing makes a big difference if somebody needs to use assistive technology while reading or listening your content.

• Enabling environment (all possible accessibility issues): Antti Raike
• Dyslexia; specific reading and writing difficulties in the mother tongue and in foreign languages; (foreign) language learning and teaching: Signe-Anita Lindgrén
• Mappings, plans and surveys for barrier-free environment: Ilpo Korhonen
• Students and social life on campus: Esa-Pekka Mattila, kokemusasiantuntija, AYY.
• Harald Herling Learning Centre: Risto Maijala
• AV equipment services and development: Peter Simontschuk and Janne Lummaa
• Coordination of the equality work: Anna Hynynen
• Lawyer Anni Tuomela