ADCET UDL Symposium: Making the Visual Accessible - Fashion, Art and Beyond
Online presentation
Students with low vision or blindness remain underrepresented in both inclusive university pedagogy discourse and fashion education, a discipline structured around visual dominance. This presentation emphasises the importance of written and audio description as core pedagogical practices aligned with Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
We share a project in the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University that builds educators’ descriptive competencies through two co-designed workshops developed in partnership with Vitae Veritas, an arts access organisation, and co-facilitated by a description expert and a lived experience expert. Workshops focused on image description for learning materials, audio description for live demonstrations, and development of multisensory disciplinary vocabulary.
Grounded in UDL guidelines to support multiple ways to perceive information (1.2) and clarify vocabulary (2.1), the project considers description as a means of expanding perceptual access for all learners, including those who process information across multiple sensory channels. Early reflections indicate that educators report increased confidence in articulating tacit visual knowledge and greater awareness of how visual bias structures their teaching.
Impact is evaluated across immediate, medium, and long-term timeframes, including staff practice integration, student experience measures, and enrolment and retention data for students who disclose low vision or blindness.
This presentation shares emerging insights, workshop methodology, and progress toward a best-practice guide for visual description across creative disciplines. As a collaboration between a fashion and social sciences academic, potential lies for interdisciplinary transfer of the project learnings. By positioning description as foundational, the project demonstrates how accessibility practices can transform disciplinary pedagogy and enrich learning environments for everyone.
Presenters
Dr Julie Gork is Lecturer in the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University. Julie researches fashion and the body, focusing on sensory fashion, disability, and fashion for social justice. Recent work explores how the lived experience of disability develops alternative fashion expertise.
Dr Belinda Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Human Services and a Senior Researcher in the Social Equity Research Centre at RMIT University. Belinda’s innovative approach to learning and teaching incorporates creative pedagogies into social sciences to create student belonging and inclusive, peer learning cultures. Her work was recently published in the book "Tutorial Ideas for Educators on the Run" (Jarldorn & Hudson 2025). Her expertise in these areas has been recognised in the 2020 RMIT Vice Chancellor’s Excellence in Higher Education Teaching Award and the 2024 College of Design and Social Context Extreme Pedagogy Award.
(June 2026)