Digital accessibility is a civil right. It ensures that all students, faculty, and staff—regardless of ability—can fully participate in learning, teaching, research, and campus life. Accessible digital content and tools remove barriers to education, promote equity and inclusion, and are essential for compliance with laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
When working with vendors, UIS faculty and staff should try to keep a couple of things in mind in terms of digital accessibility.
Accessibility testing is a crucial aspect of creating an inclusive digital environment. It ensures that all users, including those with disabilities, can access and interact with web content effectively. This testing is not only important for inclusivity but also for compliance with legal standards such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508.
Designing with accessibility in mind means creating content and products that are usable by people with a wide range of abilities and disabilities. This includes considering visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor impairments. The POUR principle guides accessibility design: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.
Over the summer, ODA will hold online office hours over the summer on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00-11:00 for people who have digital accessibility questions.
During the academic year, ODA staff join the COLRS for open office hours on weekdays that the university is open. ODA staff will answer questions on remediation and accessibility.
As your unit or department is planning for digital accessibility, it may make sense to do some or all of the following:
At the University of Illinois Springfield, we are committed to ensuring that all digital content is accessible to everyone. This page provides essential information about digital file remediation and captioning, two critical components of our efforts to broaden access to information and tools across campus.
In October, the Office of Digital Accessibility (ODA) and COLRS will share an accessibility tip on writing and including alternative text for images in Microsoft Word and Canvas content.
Join us to learn about creating useful alt text for images.
In case you missed it, last week the Office of Digital Accessibility (ODA) and COLRS shared an accessibility tip on Color contrast in files and Canvas content.
Several aspects need to be considered when we talk about color contrast, including: ratios, text size, images of text, and non-text guidelines.
Join us to learn how to check for successful color contrast and fix issues in PowerPoint and Canvas.