Digital Accessibility
Digital accessibility is a practice ensuring that content, resources, and technology communicated electronically can be used regardless of ability, disability, or assistive technology.
Digital accessibility promotes inclusivity in your content, including, but not limited to:
- Websites
- Video and audio content
- Electronic documents
While digital accessibility specifically impacts people with disabilities, it improves your content and user experience for everyone.
For more information about digital accessibility, visit our training page.
Accessibility is a Process
Remember accessibility is a process, not a one-time project. You won’t be able to fix everything overnight, and you’re not expected to. Try one of the following approaches to make digital accessibility part of your daily work:
- Create a timeline based on the next time you use specific digital content (e.g., a video in a course that needs captions)
- Make a task list focused on content types (e.g., images, headings, videos, etc.)
- Add one accessibility best practice into your daily workflow. Once you’ve mastered it, add in another and keep building your skills
- Look at analytics or other usage data to determine what digital content gets used most often
Use one or more of these approaches to break the work into manageable chunks that you can address over time. Each one will allow you to focus on the accessibility work you need to do. This effort will make Carolina’s digital presence more inclusive for everyone.
Whatever you do, remember you’re not alone. The Digital Accessibility Office is here to support you. You can contact us anytime.
Accessibility Statements
An accessibility statement shows your commitment to accessibility. It lets users know you care about them and their access to your digital content.
You can use these two examples from educational publishing companies to develop your own statement:
Once you’ve completed all accessibility fixes, you can add something like “This website/tool/product was tested against WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards. If you have problems accessing any part of this website/tool/product, contact…”