Last updated June 5, 2023
Who is responsible for making digital content accessible?
We all are responsible for making digital content accessible. Accessibility is a shared university responsibility. The new digital accessibility policy applies to all UW–Madison schools, colleges, divisions, and units. The owner of a digital resource or technology is responsible for making that content or technology accessible per the standards included with the new policy. Practicing digital accessibility as part of your regular work processes and operational decisions creates a more usable, inclusive digital environment for everyone.
What do I need to do?
With the support of the Center for User Experience, your responsibilities will be to:
Incorporate accessibility practices
Incorporate accessibility practices into your everyday business processes and decisions.
Digital accessibility liaisons
Assign one or more digital accessibility liaisons within your unit.
Follow the implementation phases
The Digital Accessibility Policy is organized into multiple phases that will help the university focus resources towards one type of content. This also allows units to prioritize where they should focus resources to support the policy.
Ensure third-party technology standards
Get resources for working with vendors to ensure third-party technology meets the policy standards. Those responsible for which vendor products to procure consider accessibility early as one of the criteria for acquisition.
Develop skills and access resources
To support everyone in practicing digital accessibility, a variety of resources and guidance are available — whether you’re designing HTML (including mass emails), Google, Microsoft, or PDF documents.
Evaluations and training
Digital accessibility consulting
Digital accessibility evaluations
Digital accessibility training
Digital accessibility liaisons: Building a network of local point people
To make implementation easier in a large organization, the policy establishes a network of digital accessibility liaisons. The Center for User Experience will communicate more about the digital accessibility liaison designation process and how to support this community.
What will a digital accessibility liaison do?
At a minimum, liaisons will:
- Receive information about digital accessibility, including training
- Share information broadly with their colleagues
- Communicate with the Center for User Experience about digital accessibility barriers and evaluation needs, and to access support
Learn more about the digital accessibility liaison network.
Why is digital accessibility important?
According to the CDC one in four adults in the United States lives with a disability.
Digital accessibility ensures that many in our community can independently and fully participate in learning, teaching, and university life through our technology. It also makes our technology more usable overall, for everyone.
Explore more about your role in creating an accessible and inclusive university.
Accommodation vs. accessibility
Accommodations
You may be familiar with the accommodations process at UW–Madison. Accommodations provide access, but they may result in a different experience for the disabled individual (or individual with a disability). For example, an accommodation may require another person’s assistance to complete a task versus doing the task independently and privately.
Accessibility
Accessibility is proactive instead of reactive, making it possible for a person with a disability to perform their work and study independently just like their abled‑bodied peers.
More resources on disability
What does it mean to have accessible digital content?
The Digital Accessibility Standards measure digital accessibility by two complementary standards: functional accessibility and technical accessibility.
Functional accessibility
The determining factor of whether a digital resource or information technology is accessible is based on whether an individual with a disability can use it to achieve the same goals or outcomes, as independently (without accommodation or assistance from another individual) and privately as someone without a disability.
Technical accessibility
The Digital Accessibility Policy points to:
- The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, an internationally developed and shared set of standards
- The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UUAG) for readers and players including but not limited to browsers, media players, e-readers, and browser extensions
Is my digital content or technology accessible?
Evaluating your digital content or technology to identify and document barriers is critical to progressively making it more accessible.
Focus on progress, not perfection
No technology is ever “fully accessible.” That’s why it is important to think about accessibility as an ongoing practice.
No two people with the same disability are alike or affected in the exact same way by their disability, thus people using your technology or digital content all have unique variances that determine how usable a piece of technology is for them as an individual.
If someone tells you they are still experiencing a barrier even if your technology meets the standards, you must investigate and fix that barrier and, until fixed, you will need to provide the person a reasonable accommodation.
Digital accessibility evaluation resources
Testing your digital resources is the best way to know how accessible your digital content or product is for people with disabilities.
Testing manually with assistive technology to evaluate functional accessibility is the most reliable way to make sure your digital resource or technology is accessible.
You can also self-evaluate if your digital resource is accessible initially by using an automated testing tool for a first-glance overview of accessibility barriers that may exist in your content.
When barriers are found, contact the Center for User Experience to be sure that there is a current evaluation and documentation about your digital resource.
Web accessibility testing tools
Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE)
Website crawling tool
Sa11y
Page by page testing
WebAIM WAVE
Page by page testing
Video and audio accessibility guidance
Live captioning and sign language interpreting
Post-production captions and transcripts for pre-recorded events
The Center for User Experience
At the Center for User Experience, we are committed to working with you to make digital spaces more accessible, usable and inclusive for all students, faculty and staff at UW–Madison. We help the university follow its Digital Accessibility Policy by offering free evaluation and consultation services to all UW–Madison community members.
Get in touch
- Meet with us: Book a quick chat with one of our team members to ask any questions you have.
- Start a project with us: We support accessible design and development. Fill out our Let’s Connect form to begin working with us on your project or to request an accessibility evaluation.
- Email us: Not sure if you’re ready to meet? Email us to start talking and figure out what to do next.