Accessibility Special Interest Group

The Accessibility SIG serves as a focal point both to help members with special needs achieve their potential and to help ensure the accessibility of technical communication products to end users with special needs. The SIG accomplishes this by researching and publishing information about products, services, and literature that can assist technical communicators with disabilities in their career activities and assist all technical communicators in developing products that are fully accessible to users with disabilities.

Examples of “special needs” include impaired mobility, hearing, and eyesight. Examples of accommodations for those special needs include speech recognition software, improved wheelchair access, a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) telephone line, Braille keyboards, and Section 508-compliant websites.

Managers and instructors may be unaware of resources that can help those with special needs and requirements to do so. The Accessibility SIG is the first STC-supported endeavor to address this gap. Accessibility SIG activities include the following:

maintaining a discussion list
surveying SIG members about their special needs
publishing findings, news, and information
highlighting professional development and academic research in accessibility of technical communication products (for example, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act)