Going deeper on some of the problems with "retrofitting"

Some ideas that are helpful as context for UDL

Last week I wrote a little bit about how faculty developers sometimes assume that the rationale for various teaching practices will be obvious or be understood quickly by instructors. As a UDL practitioner, I noted that this is a common phenomenon with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) - advocates summarize why UDL is important with a quick statement about the need to design for learner variability rather than an imagined average student, so that the curriculum can be accessed by more students without retrofits or accommodations. I have become interested in fleshing out this point, because I notice how many questions instructors who are new to UDL have about the distinction between accessible design and retrofitting. Accommodations are a form of retrofitting in that they provide modification to a learning experience that was designed a particular way, and many instructors (correctly) understand that accommodations are an important component of equity and accessibility for disabled students. So what are the drawbacks?

What is retrofitting?

Put most simply, retrofitting is the addition of new features to older systems that lacked those features initially. You might know the term retrofitting from its architectural or construction context, in which a building or structure has features added to it years or decades after its initial construction (e.g. seismic retrofitting, in which structures are reinforced to make them more resilient to earthquakes). Retrofitting is often a response to new information or events, such as updated building codes, changing conditions like those brought on by climate change, or the availability of new technologies. In contrast, some retrofitting is done because certain users were not considered among the likely or intended users of a structure. This is mostly where retrofitting interacts with disability and accessibility.

What are some of the drawbacks of retrofitting with respect to accessibility?

I often write about the importance of understanding exclusion in order to move towards inclusion in teaching. To understand what the drawbacks of retrofitting are, it is important to highlight that retrofitting is by definition an “afterthought.” It is a reactive rather than proactive process. While I acknowledge that retrofitting is sometimes necessary, whether because of unforeseen circumstances or time or budget constraints etc., there are a number of ways in which retrofitting can be an exclusionary practice, even when intended to create access. There are three broad categories of this phenomenon that I want to explore, first generally and then specifically in teaching and learning contexts: (1) Retrofitting does not always uphold basic dignity of disabled people; (2) It often requires a public disclosure of disability where it may be unwanted or risky; (3) It sometimes still provides unequal access even after the retrofit is added.

Basic dignity

Jay Dolmage theorized retrofitting as it relates to disability in education, suggesting that retrofitting often looks like a ramp on the side of a building, or around the back of one. Accordingly, disability as an aspect of individual experience and as a consideration in educational design is often “invited in the back door.” The accessible entrance “around back” is a particularly pointed example of how retrofitting solves the problem of disabled people needing a way to get into the building, but does it in a way that they are clearly marked as the unexpected and secondary users of the space. I think one example of this problem of retrofitting in course design/teaching is when an inaccessible class activity is retrofitted with a very othering participation option for a disabled student. I think this exists in any situation in which a student is asked or expected to leave or separate themselves from the class because of their disability or another need. Some instances of this that I have encountered were a student with food allergies being asked not to attend a nutrition class during a food-tasting activity and instead interview a colleague about the experience after the fact and a student with a visual impairment being asked to visit a museum on a different day than a planned class trip because a narrated tour was not available on the original day. These retrofits both provide some degree of access, but exclude the student from some of the collaborative or social experiences that are usually thought to be benefits or even goals of the learning experience.

Privacy vs. forced disclosure 

As I mentioned earlier, retrofitting is a reactive approach to access. A lot of the time, the retrofit is a reaction to someone disclosing a disability. Thus, in many cases, the process of finding an accessible option can only start if a student is willing and able to disclose a disability, which they may not wish to do. A ready example of this issue in teaching is the great “laptop in class” debate that has been active for at least the last decade if not more. Some instructors (and students!) believe that laptops in class are distracting and that taking notes by hand supports learning, leading some instructors to ban laptops. However, some students with disabilities need a device such as a laptop to take notes or otherwise participate in class. So, in a class where laptops are “banned,” a student with a documented disability may be allowed to use a laptop because of a formal accommodation, but will automatically “out” themselves as disabled because of the policy against laptop use¹. We often (in my opinion) lean too hard on students’ willingness to disclose their disabilities, even while the right to not disclose a disability when not actively seeking accommodations is a significant consideration in disability law and policy. For example, Princeton University’s Office of Disability Services names a “right not to self-identify if accommodations are not being requested.” It seems to me if this right is to be taken seriously, we should also try not to create unnecessary situations where disability needs to be disclosed through a reliance on retrofitting.

Additional temporal or cognitive burden

As is detailed in an informative article about the history and current reality of web accessibility, many technologies are obsolete before they become accessible. Ironically, as the authors explain, it is disability rights law itself that creates this situation, because companies and organizations are allowed to create inaccessible technologies with the intention of retrofitting them later on. Much the same way disabled people face general delays in participating in cultural phenomena and online social opportunities because of lack of accessibility, the wait time between requesting an accessible or alternative material and getting it puts disabled students temporally behind their peers in the class, which could cause them to miss out on learning. Another good example of additional cognitive and temporal burden is the difference between captioned videos and retrofitting videos with a transcript. Stephanie Kerschbaum explains that providing a transcript after the fact instead of captioning a video creates later access for those who cannot hear the video, but also complicates the learning experience because “it is almost impossible to read a transcript and watch a video the same time because doing so requires your eyes to be focused simultaneously on two different things.” 

These three broad categories of problems with retrofitting are sometimes overlapping - for instance a student prevented from the basic dignity of participating in a class activity may also be faced with the cognitive and temporal burden of arranging an alternative, such as the accessible museum tour. Since I didn’t plan for this to be a “how to do UDL” post, I won’t go on at length here about what to do instead of retrofitting (though I will link to a workshop design that has a bunch of strategies I do use). My hope is just that this post gives you or the instructors you work with some more detail on what retrofitting it, and why it is often not the most inclusive approach.

I hope you enjoyed this elaboration on retrofitting, and I invite your own examples of the limitations of retrofitting in teaching. Please feel free to comment if you are logged into substack or contact me.

1. ^{I have also written about the way that remote proctoring software forces disclosure of disability in some cases.}

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Cover Photo by Kirill Sh on Unsplash