What digital accessibility is
In case you don't know, digital accessibility is the practice of making digital content easy for everyone to find, understand, navigate, and use, no matter their abilities or what device they're using.
'Digital content' can include:
- web pages
- digital images, videos, and audio
- emails
- digital documents
Why digital accessibility matters
Obviously, it's the right thing to do
Accessible content makes it easier for everyone to find, read, and understand the information they need.
It helps people. And who wouldn't want to help people?
Accessible digital content is essential for people with:
- permanent disabilities who use assistive technology to perform tasks online
- temporary impairments, like a broken arm or even an ear infection
- situational impairments, like a slow internet connection or a noisy environment (we've all been there)
So basically, it's good for everyone.
It's also the law
It's a legal requirement for public sector websites and apps to be accessible. This is set out in The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, which you're welcome to read if you really want to get into it.
Then there's the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, which says businesses must make reasonable adjustments so disabled people can use their services the same way non-disabled people can.
And, to top it all off, we've got the Equality Act 2010, which says employers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure disabled people are not disadvantaged when at work.
Web accessibility standards
To make sure we get it right and meet the legal requirements, there are certain governing bodies whose standards we have to conform to.
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is, in its own words:
...an international public-interest non-profit organization where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.
W3C was founded by The Creator (of the World Wide Web, at least), Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who knows a bit about the internet, so it's worth listening to their advice.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
As part of its mission to help the internet be its best self, W3C created and maintains the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG - usually pronounced 'W'cag'). The guidelines describe how to make websites and web content:
- perceivable, so people can (visually or otherwise) identify information and interact with a website's components
- operational, so people can use a website's components and navigation
- understandable, so people can (you guessed it) understand the information and the user interface on a website
- robust, so people can use assistive technologies, like screen readers, to interpret a website's content
There are three levels of compliance with WCAG: A, AA, and AAA. The lowest level is A, which only includes the most basic guidelines, and the highest is AAA.
Government Digital Service
The Government Digital Service (GDS) assesses public sector websites, including ours, to make sure we're compliant with WCAG to level AA. For website content, this broadly means:
- using text alternatives for any non-text content
- giving people ways to navigate content and determine where they are on the website and a page
- making content readable and understandable for everyone
Who's responsible for making digital content accessible
YOU ARE!
Ok, that was a bit dramatic, sorry. But if you create and edit content on the website, make and share digital documents with colleagues, or even send emails, you have a responsibility to make that content accessible.
How we can help you
How about some guidance?
We've got a lot of guidance on the website to help you create web content. There's guidance about using Typecase, writing clear and consistent copy, formatting content, and using videos and images. Accessibility is fundamental to all of these, so we've integrated our accessibility guidance into our existing content.
So, if you're creating a web page and want a reminder about how to create headings, for example, our headings guidance will tell you how to do it, but also how to do it accessibly. This means you can make sure your content is accessible from the start, not as an added bonus or 'nice-to-have'.
Digital accessibility isn't just about the website, though. We've also written guidance about making accessible emails and digital documents.
You can find all the guidance for making accessible digital content on our new(ish) Digital accessibility guidance page.
How we made the guidance
As always, we were nothing if not thorough.
Researched other people's guidance
We started off by looking at websites for:
- government and public sector
- news outlets
- digital services
- charities
- other universities
This was a benchmarking exercise to see what guidance and other information those websites included and how they integrated their accessibility guidance into other content.
Edited our existing guidance
Once we'd worked out where we could integrate accessibility into existing guidance, we set about editing over 60 pages with varying degrees of information about making content accessible.
Drafted new pages for more detailed guidance
We also created eight new guides where we thought we needed more detailed guidance. For example, we now have guidance on writing accessible page titles and about making images accessible.
Made sure we covered all necessary WCAG criteria
We reviewed all our guidance against the WCAG success criteria. W3C released a new version of WCAG while we were working on the guidance, so we also had to make sure we were covering any new requirements.
We got to know WCAG pretty well!
Special thanks
While we were researching and writing the guidance, we had a lot of very helpful support and feedback from the Assistive Technology team. They provide assistive technology for staff and students and run workshops about making emails accessible.
Go forth and accessibilise
Yes, I made that word up, but I stand by it.
If you create web content, digital documents, blog posts, work emails, newsletters, Reddit rants, or any digital content whatsoever, make it accessible. And, if you have questions or want to show us your work like a proud parent, email us at beta-content@bath.ac.uk
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