Throughout my years of making media, I have been taught the basic concept of creating a finished product that met my audience’s needs. Interactive pieces, for example, needed to have clear and decipherable navigation that led the user logically through the content. It wasn’t until I started my work at Miami University, though, that I really was exposed to the eAccessibility tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
The university, at the time, was undergoing litigation concerning electronic content that was not accessible by a blind student (their lawsuit has since been settled). Since I placed content directly on the web, I was exposed to basic trainings that helped me understand what made web content accessible and what did not. Descriptive alt tags and organized content were not a new idea for me, so I took the limited knowledge and just kept working away.
[Side Note] During this same time at Miami University, I was working closely with faculty from the Department of Special Education writing articles and developing a video for their new thematic sequence (above). This helped me better understand the complicated aspects and terminology associated with learners with a wide range of abilities.
My work with the Electronic and Information Technology (EIT) Accessibility Program at the University of Cincinnati has expanded my understanding and knowledge of eAccessibility. Not only have I gained a wealth of knowledge surrounding eAccessibility through workshops, program retreats, and online training modules (like Deque University), but through my position, I am now better equipped to talk to others about eAccessibility and the EIT Accessibility Program.
I am excited to be able to combine my past two degrees into a new professional adventure that is both challenging and stimulating. And in the future, I hope to post more articles about what I’ve learned. More uncovering of the iceberg to come…
Education, Health and Society. These were short four-minute videos where students talked about their home department and how they liked it. I was proud of these videos because I was able to complete them from start to finish, including scheduling facilities, developing interview questions, and managing the details of the shoot. The hardest part of this project was trying to find a suitable location where the interviews could take place. I finally found several classrooms where the backgrounds were interesting yet not too distracting. In the end, I received many compliments from the heads of the departments–they were eager to use them to promote their programs as soon as they could!
keep in contact with one another in order to complete our project. This writing, a collaborative effort, details the process we went through in order to define a problem, develop solutions, and arrive at a consensus for our final solution. Our group chose stormwater runoff as its problem and, through our research, came up with a plan to hold a walk-a-thon and festival on Earth Day to raise awareness and educate the public about the problems associated with stormwater runoff. My professor liked it so much he recommended the plan to one of his friends working in the Cincinnati Sewer District. It was this project and my Cultural Communications project that helped me to win the Outstanding Senior Award in the NKU Communication Studies Online Program.
learn the school’s guidelines. This was a project that not only taught me about branding, it helped me to organize information in a visual form, which is why I love graphic design so much! I was handed a 4 page document filled with facts and statistics about each of our departments and I organized the most relevant information into four infographic sheets. These sheets were targeted toward potential students so recruiters could travel to high schools and talk about our program offerings. The facts were meant to be short conversation starters that would then prompt the students to ask more questions. I used the branded badges to highlight the key information about programs in the college.
for faculty, staff, and students to communicate internally. These were the announcement boards that I updated them every week. I developed an online submission system where you could submit text and/or graphics by the end of the business day Tuesday and I would work on them on Wednesdays. It was great to be able to see my work on the displays around the hall and know that the information was getting out to the faculty and students on campus. Every so often, I would stand and watch the screens to make sure they were displaying properly and to see if the order of the slides were logical. It was great to see people walk past me and wonder what I was looking at!
The content varied: articles I found during research about topics that I thought would be interesting to employees in our various departments, blog posts about current or former students (or divisional accomplishments), organic posts about presentations and opportunities offered through the division. Anything that might appeal to that target audience. I also spent some time interacting and commenting on posts by all the schools and businesses in the area as well as popular educational Facebook pages. We saw our audience grow and our stats go up:
Lastly, I include the digital display system of the division. I’ve mentioned this before in my post about 
The target audience for the display system was internal employees and current students and sometimes outside audiences. This is where we posted new class opportunities, events, internships, accomplishments, etc.–anything that would be of interest to (a mostly) internal audience.
I received many compliments from the employees of the division who told me they actually stopped to read what was on the displays and they liked to see what was going on from the slides. I also received positive feedback from employees in other divisions complimenting me on the style and visual appeal of the slides. This was great feedback to get on a seemly small channel of communication!
When using media “channels of communication”, I like to think about the audience that I am targeting through that channel. This not only allows me to organize the information into logical outlets, I can also drive the right audience to the right channel. Instead of pushing out all communications on all channels, I can tailor the content to a specific audience making my communications more effective. The audience will watch and listen to the channel with more attentiveness because the information coming from that channel has a higher probability of being useful and pertinent to them. In this way, I can use these outlets together in a larger more comprehensive campaign instead of it all being one massive data dump.
Display Case
In order to create the stand ups, I used a white paper backdrop in the studio and lit the subjects with a nice soft 3 point lighting. We took a number of shots with and without the poster board. And because of the studio setup, I was able to easily isolate the models from the background in Photoshop. After the clients chose which photos they wanted, I sized the images so that they could be printed at life size (around 5 feet tall) and handed over the files. It was fun seeing them around in the hallways–they really attracted attention!
In high school I enjoyed a plethora of extracurricular activities along with my academic rigor. I was highly involved in plays and musicals, which eventually turned into helping college friends make a homemade movie. After my stint as crew, makeup artist, sound recordist, and sound effects editor, I emerged wanting to participate in the professional creative world. I trained as an audio engineer at 
mint green monitor 