Comment on FR Doc # 2026-07663
Deborah LillieSupportIndividual
Summary: A visual art professor expresses frustration over the time and effort required to make their course materials accessible to students with visual impairments. While they question the practical logic of the regulation, they explicitly state they are "deeply grateful" for the extension of the compliance deadline.
With regard to the new ADA regulation concerning Web accessibility and the extended deadline for compliance:
I teach visual art, and have created well over 75 hours of instructional videos to help my students complete their assigned projects and master various principles associated with each of my 8 courses. Now all of these videos require human-generated subtitles. I also have about 50 Powerpoint presentations which I now have to re-build so that the e-reader will dictate the content in order. Since all of my classes are in the field of visual art, there are many pictures that now need alternate descriptions, but there seems to be a limit on how detailed the description is allowed to be. I hope that you can see the irony of all this. I have taught art for over 30 years, and have never had a blind person ask to take my class.
I am a dedicated professor who strives to meet my students at their level and deliver information in the best manner possible. The time I am spending to remake all of my course materials is taking away from time that I could be spending actually teaching the students I have in the classroom. While I am deeply grateful for the extension of the compliance deadline, I must say that I question the logic behind attempting to make visual art accessible to the blind.