The cart before the horse: accessibility practice comes before accessibility research

The technology landscape is changing both for Canadian postsecondary students with disabilities and for access professionals working in postsecondary education. The cost of adaptive technologies is decreasing; students with disabilities are increasingly accessing general use rather than traditional assistive technologies, mobile devices are ubiquitous, artificial intelligence is the current buzzword, Microsoft and Adobe have built-in accessibility checkers, and so on. However, the focus of academic research studies does not reflect these new developments. We suggest that this is due to three distinct factors. First, technology vendors, who sing the praises of their latest product, conduct much of the “research” in their own interest. Second, the literature found on Google.com is a far step away from what can be found on Google Scholar, as most scientific articles are based on new products and their usability with tiny samples and little current relevance. Finally, research findings contingent on student surveys are primarily descriptive, and often based on responses from students registered with disability access offices and on assistive technologies provided by the academic institutions. This chapter discusses the technologies post-secondary students with diverse disabilities find most and least useful, as well as the barriers and facilitators of technologies for students with disabilities.