Straive Accessibility Scholarship

I grew up on closed captioning. It was hard for people to understand why I needed captions on when watching a show or movie. I'm not hard of hearing or deaf; my hearing is above average. Those who knew me, though, knew that I needed them on because I could not understand what people were saying. Sometimes, I thought I was being messed with or hearing another language. It wasn't until high school, when my immune system started attacking my nerves, that anyone thought it was a real issue. As years have gone on, people have been more understanding. Maybe because instead of seeing a nine-year-old in seemingly perfect health, they see a nineteen-year-old paralyzed in one leg and reliant on forearm crutches to get around. Teachers started turning on auto-transcription in classes without me having to ask, and people no longer complain when I turn on captions during movie nights. In high school, taking classes on Zoom was especially bad because of the interference, delays, and videos freezing. Newer technology, like automatic transcriptions, was implemented near the end of my second school year with the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was astronomically different. Though I still struggled with isolation, distractions, and being in my home nearly 24/7 with my younger brother, being able to participate in class, answer questions, and engage in group discussions was life-changing. By my senior year, I was participating more in class than I had in my life. Enjoying classes made it easier to make friends, and through them, I was able to engage in extracurriculars, with my favorite being technical theater. Having something to do, especially in a tight-knit community like the theater department, made me excel more in my social life. I joined clubs, which I was previously not confident enough to do, and ended up leading one in my senior year. The university I attend, the University of Denver, has also helped me with my audio processing issues by letting me record lecture audio and giving me access to their transcription software. This software has let me study after lectures, as I find it very difficult to figure out what people are saying and take notes on nodal analysis, Taylor series, or CAD systems. It has also given me more free time, time I spend reading, meeting with friends, or on personal projects, because I no longer have to attempt to teach myself from the snippets I understood during class. I chose to major in electrical engineering because I believe that there is a way to make everyday life more accessible through technology. My first project in college was designing a prototype of a wrist guard to help the elderly and those with bleeding disorders interact with overly friendly dogs. Though you could tell four first-year engineering students made it, it was functional enough to make me confident that I could, someday, be responsible for creating something that changes lives.

My name is Natalya Hammond. I am attending San Jose State University and my major is Information Science and Data Analytics. I plan to get my BS and stay on for my Masters in Library Science (MLIS) to obtain my career goals of becoming a Librarian Archivist. I have always identified as a good student. I love going to school. When I was younger, I was the kid in school that got upset if I got a B instead of an A on my assignments or tests. I made the honor roll frequently and was in the GATE Program. However, in high school I began to struggle in math and saw my A’s drop; all the way down to a “D.” This performance was not normal for me. I worked with tutors. And we had several assessments done. I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. I was also diagnosed with a learning disability in math called dyscalculia, which is like dyslexia. I struggle with key concepts like left vs. right, bigger vs. smaller, and I have a hard time with basic math problems like fractions and more complex math like algebra. Oddly though, I am great at geometry! Knowing that I was not stupid and that I had a legitimate disorder, or two, made me feel better. And I continue to thrive in school and at my job at the library with appropriate accommodations in place. I now have accommodations in place for me at SJSU through the AEC, Accessibility Education Center which include: e-text, natural reader, read and write, “notaker” and Glean. With these accommodations in place, I am able to be successful in keeping up with my lessons, notes, assignments, and tests. It levels the playing field for me and helps me to be present in my lectures using the services to aid in the rest. Then I can refer to the notes and the AI tech with Glean to help me with exam review and study. I now have the confidence to pursue my dream of becoming a Library Archivist. This would not have been possible without accommodations. My family champions advocacy and my mother volunteers her knowledge to help other parents navigate the minefield of free and appropriate education (FAPE), and the rights of their students. I am so happy my mother and father advocate for us and for all of the people in our community that need a voice. My family's kindness, love and support of me, my brother, and everyone has rubbed off on me. I do not know if my voice will be as loud since I also suffer from social and generalized anxiety, but I know one day I will get there. Mom says it just may take longer for me. I am studying Information Science and Data Analytics. SJSU is the only school in California offering this specific program for an undergraduate major, and this will build a solid foundation for my Master of Library Science degree, which I intend to pursue immediately after receiving my BS degree. I have always loved going to the library, for as long as I can remember. I became a Library Aide my junior year, and I just knew I wanted to work for Libraries as a professional. I am working at the Watsonville Public Library now as a part time page. I am on my way to reaching my goals. And with your scholarship, that makes my goal much more obtainable. Thank you for your consideration.

My experience as a software engineer and web developer has been uniquely affected by my experience as a person diagnosed with ADHD. This perspective has given me direct insight to the problems plaguing the internet when trying to absorb information. Digital accessibility is more of a recent development, and even though it is becoming more widespread, there is still a lot of work to be done to improve websites, many of them being crucial for modern life. In this essay, I will explore three key issues I've encountered: the problem of cluttered text and its impact on readability, the challenges of balancing information distribution on web pages, and the importance of multimedia integration in digital interfaces, especially for educational content. These issues have contributed greatly to my interest in UI/UX, and I aim to continue to learn more about these issues throughout my career. One issue I often notice is having information conveyed in small, cluttered letters. This makes it exhausting to read, as my energy drains quickly. I have always noticed this but was surprised when others didn’t seem to have this problem, thus I want to develop websites and/or applications everyone can use efficiently. Another issue I noticed is that information can be too spread out or cluttered in a website. If a website has information very spread out, then that means the user must have to open a new tab many times, which can easily distract users. The other extreme is having websites have all the information too cluttered, which makes it difficult for the user to actually read and absorb the information since the website is already overstimulating. In one of my web projects, we decided on UI that separates main information into a few blocks on one page, and for more information it could lead to a new page. If I could change something about that, I would maybe use a pop-up page when showing more information, or having a hover function that briefly shows the information for reference. It is a difficult task to balance these two issues, but I still think we should put a strong effort into finding the best medium possible. Lastly, a major issue I find in websites, especially academic sites, is the lack of multimedia. Sometimes text can’t explain everything, for example, if there is a form on a website that needs to be filled and there are instructions in a paragraph, that isn’t the most efficient way to provide information. Instead, it should have brief and concise descriptions spread out next to where the form inputs are and should include almost universal signs that indicate important information. For example, a warning next to an unfilled form. This basic practice can be expanded to UI/UX design on a larger scale. For example, putting a star on crucial information like definitions, and having a diagram next to a paragraph that offers more information. People have differing learning styles, and implemented multimedia can facilitate learning for all. I am taking a class this fall that teaches the principles of UI/UX design. When I was informed of the class I was happy to see that there is a science for something I thought was a small niche, it was validating to see that there's a whole field dedicated to issues I've been grappling with personally. I plan to use the information and training in the class, and everything I have learned thus far with all my side projects, internships and web classes, to always emphasize the importance of accessibility in the products I contribute.

There's a lot of different ways, both positive and negative, that digital accessibility has influenced my academic and career goals and experiences, especially as a person with Autism and ADHD. First, I'd like to start with some of the negatives. One of my greatest struggles brought about by technology has been a decrease in my ability to stay focused. I find myself checking Discord and tumblr almost constantly, waiting to see my online friends update and post and message so that I can respond. I've also found myself binging YouTube videos in bulk in the background of pretty much my entire day, trying to keep myself stimulated far more than I should be. Even right now as I write this, I keep getting distracted by the video I'm listening to in the background, but I can't get myself to stop. However, the positives of digital accessibility have also been a major help to me figuring out what I wanted to study in school and what I want to do as a career. In High School, I found myself taking multiple Computer Science and Computer Programming classes, and taking to them really well. I even took an electronics class and a couple robotics courses! All of this led me to decide on majoring in Computer Science, which has been going really well for me so far! Other positives of my digital accessibility is, wrapping back around to one of the negatives, my time on tumblr and Discord. Through these channels, I've managed to build myself an online support system who I can trust and who trust me in turn, and these friends have been a big help to my mental health. Having people I can vent to about my issues or share how I'm feeling with, or show my silly ideas to, has been a big help to me, especially in cases where I can't talk to anyone in real life about things like this. I've also been able to use technology to help me remember what to do throughout my day, like setting alarms and reminders for myself, or writing notes on what I need to do. I can remind myself where and when my classes are, set alarms for when I need to log onto my current job as an online tutor, and keep track of my to-do list all from my phone. After I graduate, or even before, I want to find some form of employment in the fields of Computer Science. I'm not entirely decided on what I'd specifically like to do, but I know that my dream job would be working on video games, probably at a smaller studio so that I wouldn't have to deal with big corporations and the poor working conditions. I might even try to release games myself as an indie dev on the side, with a more stable programming job or something similar. All in all, while I definitely struggle with technology taking over my life sometimes, it's been far more of a net positive in helping me figure out what I want to do in my education and career going forwards.