ADCET Webinar: Building Digital Accessibility Skills through No Mouse in the House

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For those who are new to the area of digital accessibility, it can seem like an overwhelming task to even get started. There is vocabulary to learn, guidelines to become acquainted with, and new skills to acquire. The 'No Mouse in the House' event, run by the Tasmanian Chapter of EPHEA at the University of Tasmania, aimed to help with this dilemma by providing a supportive and achievable entry point to digital accessibility.

Participants in the 'No Mouse in the House' event tackled one hour of their workday without using their mouse, relying only on their keyboards. People could join as a team or individually, and training and support was provided beforehand and on the day. The event gave UTAS staff an opportunity to learn some new skills and gain insight into some of the frustrations people face in inaccessible digital environments. Importantly, valuable new connections across the university were made, and some fantastic new digital accessibility allies were found.

This webinar shared the event set-up, participants’ experiences and overall outcomes.

Presenters

Amelia Dowe has spent 14 years working in universities to support the success of students in a range of ways. Most recently, this has included a focus on online learning and accessible digital environments. She is a co-convenor of the Tasmanian Chapter of EPHEA, and loves finding ways to make practical progress towards goals of equity and inclusion.

Doug McGinn has worked in Disability Services at the University of Tasmania since 1991. And yet, he still finds his work very rewarding and often states that every student that he works with is different. Doug is blind and uses a combination of JAWS text reader and ZoomText screen enlargement. He is heavily reliant on keyboard shortcuts and like all of us, does get frustrated at times when systems are updated and shortcut keys change. Doug was very excited to be part of “No Mouse in the House”. “I was very impressed with the enthusiasm of all participants”

Adrian Reader graduated from UTAS in 2000 with a Bachelor of Music, and after a decade in various occupations in retail, insurance, finance and marketing, found himself back at the university in administration. He has developed numerous skills within the varied roles he has performed in the past 25 years, many of which are focused around technology. He began web editing in 1997 whilst studying, and was first introduced to web accessibility requirements in 2014 when he attended a Vision Australia W3C workshop. Whilst not actually employed in the IT space, Adrian’s current role of coordinating the university timetable sees him overseeing the system that students use for their scheduling, and he is heavily involved in setting up that interface for students. Adrian is a keyboard shortcut nerd.

(March 2025)

ADCET is hosted by the University of Tasmania