What is Digital Accessibility?

Digital accessibility is the idea that we are creating digital technology and environments that are available to and usable by all people, including people with disabilities.

Digital accessibility goes beyond websites. There is a component of digital accessibility for any technology that conveys information to a user.

To make technology accessible, there are several steps that we must take. This course will help you understand how to make different types of technology and content accessible. Generally, some of the things that we must do to make technology accessible include the following (please note that this is NOT a comprehensive list):

Add captioning to video content
Add a transcript to audio content
Ensure all content can be accessed via a keyboard
Add alternative text to images
Identify a heading structure for written content
Ensure appropriate color contrast
Hyperlinks should be renamed to include descriptive text
Content behaves in a predictable manner

Benefits of Digital Accessibility

Accessibility benefits everyone. This can be shown through society’s use of smartphones. Many people use digital assistants such a Siri, Alexa, and Google, to perform tasks with their devices. Others use the functionality of speaking into their device to type and send a text message. These functions are run primarily by speech to text technology, which was initially created for disabled users. Nondisabled users realized that this technology could also be beneficial, so the technology was adopted into the mainstream.

Creating accessible technology often helps with search engine optimization, branding, and overall brand recognition.

Accessibility is a Journey, Not a Destination

It important to remember that accessibility is a journey, not a destination. With the rapid rate at which technology is adapting, it can be difficult to make something 100% accessible. Oftentimes as we modify content, we also need to recheck the accessibility.

Your first attempt at making something accessible will not be perfect, and that’s okay. This is a learning journey and the more you practice, the better you will become. Eventually accessibility will become a part of your workflow, but until that point, pick one accessibility principle (like adding headings to a document) and get really good at that. Once you’ve got that down, add a new principle into your work.