Archives: Accessibility

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Overly overlaid with over-promising: Why we don’t use an accessibility overlay

Too good to be true… You may have seen them. Often, they are represented by a blue circle with the white icon of a person: accessibility overlay. Such a great idea, it seems. With the click of a mouse, a user can select different font sizes, change background/foreground colours, hide images on the page... More

Monday, September 11, 2023

End of an error: removing the HTML code editor in WordPress

There are a lot of great improvements to the Carleton web template on the horizon when we launch cuTheme. Something we are excited for is the removal of the ability to edit a page by adding HTML, Javascript, and styling. In this post we outline why we need to make this critical move. There... More

Friday, August 18, 2023

5 Common Web Accessibility Issues: Part 2

Earlier this summer, we blogged about 5 common accessibility issues found on websites. If your site is free of these issues, then congratulations! Your site would perform well on the accessibility test from our third-party accessibility scanning system, Pope Tech. This software is not perfect and does not detect all accessibility errors. That... More

Friday, June 23, 2023

Web Accessibility and Search Engine Optimization

Web accessibility and search engine optimization (SEO) are two crucial factors that contribute to the success of a website. Web accessibility: aims to ensure usability and equal access to online content for everyone. Search engine optimization (SEO): aims to increase a website's visibility and rank in search engine results. While these two factors... More

Friday, June 9, 2023

Animating Accessibility: The Art of Inclusion

If you've been keeping up with our YouTube channel or following us on Instagram, you've probably seen some of the animated videos we've created on various web-related topics! Animation is a captivating and powerful medium that has become a significant part of our education landscape. However, to truly harness the potential of animation, it... More

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Web Accessibility and Screen Readers: A Conversation with Rebecca Jackson

From May 28 to June 3, it's National AccessAbility Week, which is dedicated to celebrating disability inclusion and accessibility in Canada! In today’s digital age, the importance of web accessibility cannot be overstated. As we strive for inclusivity, it becomes imperative to understand the experiences of those who rely on assistive technology... More

Friday, May 26, 2023

5 Common Web Accessibility Issues

Accessibility! Accessibility! Accessibility! Here at Web Services, you may notice we chat often on this topic, though that is only because it plays such a key role in the web world. Across the Carleton domain, we want to ensure everyone has the same user experience. Below are five common accessibility issues found on websites.... More

Friday, February 24, 2023

Low Vision Awareness Month and the Need for Web Accessibility

February is Low Vision Awareness Month! According to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), an estimated 1.5 million Canadians have some form of significant vision loss. Low vision encompass a broad range of experiences that may change the way the individual interacts with the web. At Carleton University, we strive to be... More

Friday, February 17, 2023

Scantastic news for accessible websites

As we have said before, the community of people who maintain websites at Carleton (that’s you!) is great at being supportive and proactive about accessibility. To maintain this momentum, we are offering to scan websites for accessibility, to check for any errors in our template or your content. How we assess accessibility There are... More

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Request a Scan!

As we often tell people, Carleton has a web community that is totally committed to accessibility. When we attend webinars and conferences online on the subject, we often hear that in other web communities across North America people have to be persuaded to integrate accessibility into the content they create. At Carleton what we... More

Friday, December 23, 2022

Keeping Tabs on Tabs

Does anyone remember Tab Cola? It was produced by Coke, and was available between 1963 and 2020. It was the first diet soda Coke produced. Its name was chosen by the company’s recently acquired IBM 1401 computer (although it preferred spelling the name with a double ‘b’ – this second 'b' was removed by... More

Friday, December 2, 2022

Describing People in Alt Text

Let’s talk about people I used to live in a small village in rural Nova Scotia. There was no longer a bank in the village because the last branch had been robbed several years ago. The bank, feeling it could no longer secure its money, shut up shop. The perpetrators were never caught. Nova... More

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