Published Dec 5, 2023 by Hannah Dillon Kesly Tallant is a UAA student who uses a screen reader every day and often accesses UAOnline. In an interview with The Northern Light, Tallant gave her perspective on the discussion of future UAOnline format changes.
Registering for classes is one of the biggest problems Tallant has with her screen reader but as she demonstrated how she registers for classes with it – it became clear she is already used to the current format, no matter how difficult.
“Should you change it now? It’s already okay, the next thing you pick could be worse. I don’t know what the better solution is here. I don’t want to learn a whole new system – that would be miserable. This thing was hard enough to figure out,” said Tallant.
Tallant explained she has been at UAA since 2017 and is aware that many universities are trying new formats in an attempt to make things better for students, but she is unsure if there is a better option right now.
“I came to UAA to be a student and I have hardly, barely been able to do that. I feel like a very big lab rat in the aspect that I’ve pointed out a lot of things that are wrong. I feel an advocate would be a good umbrella term, but really, [I feel] like an accessibility lab rat. It’s like ‘hey let’s see if this works.’ It feels like I’m the first blind person to attend UAA,” said Tallant.
Many students may look forward to the platform’s upcoming changes, but those who have already learned to navigate the current obstacles may feel overwhelmed.
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