Accessibility

We aim to make this workshop accessible to participants with a wide range of disabilities and learning needs. This page describes what we currently do, what’s still being improved, and how to ask for additional accommodations.

What we currently provide

Website

  • Keyboard navigation — every page is navigable with Tab / Shift+Tab / Enter. Search is opened with the magnifying-glass icon in the navbar.
  • Light and dark themes — toggle in the top-right of any page. Both themes meet WCAG AA contrast for body text.
  • Screen-reader-friendly structure — pages use semantic headings (a single H1, nested H2/H3), and all images have alt text or sit alongside descriptive captions.
  • Anchor links on every section header so screen-reader users can land directly on a topic.
  • Code blocks have a copy button so screen-reader users don’t have to navigate character-by-character.

Lectures (slides)

  • Slide source is plain text Markdown. If you’d rather read than watch, every lecture has a corresponding book chapter on the Materials page.
  • Slide colors are checked against WCAG AA in the standard reveal.js themes.
  • We avoid pure-color encodings (e.g. red vs. green only); plots use color-blind-safe palettes (viridis, RColorBrewer::Set2) and add shape or label redundancy where possible.

Tutorials

  • Tutorials are distributed as .qmd source so they can be read in any text editor with screen-reader support, not only inside RStudio.
  • Think about it prompts use collapsible callouts with explicit details semantics so they work with assistive tech.

Live sessions

  • Sessions are recorded and posted afterwards (see About for the link policy).
  • We aim to verbalize on-screen content (read out code, describe plots) so the audio track stands alone.
  • Real-time captioning is available on request — email the instructor at least 48 hours before the session.

Known gaps we’re working on

  • Auto-generated captions on past recordings can mis-transcribe scientific terms. We’re slowly producing corrected transcripts; if you need a clean transcript urgently, ask.
  • A few of the older lecture SVGs do not yet have descriptive <title> / <desc> tags for screen readers.

Requesting accommodations

If you need an accommodation that isn’t already provided — for example, larger fonts, alternative formats, extended time on exercises, or a sign-language interpreter — email the workshop instructor (see About) at least one week before the workshop where possible. We will make reasonable accommodations and will not ask you to disclose more than is necessary to do so.

UO students working with the Accessible Education Center (AEC) may forward AEC accommodation letters directly to the instructor.

Reporting an accessibility problem with the website

If something on this site is unusable with your assistive technology, please open an issue on GitHub or email the instructor. Include the page URL, what you were trying to do, and what your assistive technology reported. We’ll fix it.

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