The accessibility of administrative processes: Assessing the impacts on students in higher education
Tim Coughlan, Kate Lister · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018) · doi:10.1145/3192714.3192820
Summary
This paper investigates the impacts that administrative processes — such as applying for disability support, gaining medical evidence, registering for courses, and applying for government benefits — have on disabled university students. The research was conducted at The Open University UK, a distance learning institution, through a participatory approach with the Students Association Disabled Students Group (DSG). Over a one-week online forum and a face-to-face workshop, disabled students identified administrative processes as a significant source of burden in their study and daily lives. This led to the development of a survey completed by 104 respondents (plus 5 partial responses) who declared a diverse range of disabilities: specific learning difficulties like dyslexia (25.7%), fatigue and pain conditions (20.2%), unseen disabilities like diabetes or epilepsy (19.3%), mental health difficulties (18.3%), wheelchair/mobility difficulties (13.8%), and others including autism, hearing impairment, visual impairment, and speech impairment. The survey assessed four general categories of processes on a challenge scale, rated the challenge level of 12 specific commonly encountered processes, measured impacts across nine dimensions, and asked about help and support. The literature review identifies seven systemic characteristics of administrative burden for disabled people: restricted pathways, unequal outcomes, high effort, time dependencies, negative emotional responses, differing individual trajectories, and multiplicity of interacting processes.
Key findings
Disability-related processes were consistently perceived as more challenging than general administrative processes. External disability-related processes (e.g., applying for PIP or parking badges) were the most challenging category, rated as challenging or very challenging by 48.6% of respondents. Processes involving multiple organisations (e.g., applying for DSA, which requires coordination between the university, the government, and medical professionals) were also highly challenging at 45.0%. Among the 12 specific processes, applying for DSA (Disabled Students Allowance) was rated most challenging (39.3% challenging/very challenging), followed by gaining medical evidence (37.4%), the Disability Support Form (35.5%), and applying for PIP (34.6%). The most commonly reported negative impact was on stress levels: 61.5% of respondents reported a negative or very negative effect on stress. Other significant negative impacts included: impressions of government/council departments (50.9% negative), mental health (45.2% negative), effect on disabilities themselves (41.3% negative — meaning processes designed to help were actually making conditions worse), time spent on studies (37.5% negative), and physical health/wellbeing (37.5% negative). The finding that 41% experienced negative effects on their disabilities is particularly concerning, as these processes are ostensibly designed to provide support. Additionally, 44% of respondents reported that requested support was sometimes or always not in place when needed, creating cascading delays that affected study from the start of a course.
Relevance
This paper broadens the accessibility conversation beyond interface design to encompass the accessibility of entire process journeys — the sequences of forms, communications, assessments, and multi-organisational interactions that disabled people must navigate to access support. This framing is valuable because most accessibility work focuses on individual web pages or applications in isolation, while the cumulative burden of navigating an entire process (often across multiple inaccessible systems) creates impacts that exceed the sum of individual barriers. For accessibility practitioners, the paper suggests several concrete directions: designing web-based forms that support autofill and information reuse to reduce repetitive data entry across processes; using conversational agents to guide users through complex administrative journeys and reduce anxiety; making medical and functional assessment processes less deficit-focused to reduce their emotional toll; developing process management tools that help individuals track timelines, dependencies, and deadlines; and using journey analytics to identify where users abandon or struggle within multi-step processes. The participatory methodology — where disabled students shaped the research questions and survey design — is itself a model for accessibility research that centres the perspectives of those most affected.
Tags: administrative burden · higher education · disability · mental health · forms accessibility · disability support · participatory research · stress · reasonable adjustments · UK