What is Accessibility?

Module
Video
1. Video Transcript

Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes

Module

The accessibility glossary, produced by the Government of Canada’s Translation Bureau, defines an accessible website as:

A website that follows Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and that allows persons with disabilities to use assistive technologies, including text-to-speech software, to enable and assist with web browsing.

While we will go over the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) later on in this unit, let’s focus for now on the importance of enabling persons with disabilities to access web content.

Why does accessibility matter?

Perhaps you may think of disability as something uncommon that you might only encounter once or twice in your role as a website editor. You might also think that disabilities are always immediately apparent. Neither of these things are true. Consider, instead, these statistics on disability in our community:

As we mentioned in the introduction, over 1 in 5 Canadians have a disability. More precisely, 22% of people over 15 years of age in Canada have one or more disabilities (source: Statistics Canada, 2017)
At Carleton, 10.9% of students are registered with Paul Menton Centre (PMC) as having a disability (source: Carleton University Coordinated Accessibility Strategy, 2018-2019)
Another 25% seek accommodations for temporary or ongoing disabilities directly from faculty
6.4% of the Carleton workforce identify with a disability (source: Carleton University Coordinated Accessibility Strategy, 2018-2019).

If these statistics are surprising to you, it might be because of another common assumption: that disabilities are always easily perceived by others. This is also false. Some disabilities are classified as “invisible disabilities” or “hidden disabilities” precisely because they are not immediately apparent. Invisible disabilities are often overlooked, and often persons with invisible disabilities are unfairly made responsible for both educating others and self-advocating in order to receive support.

There is also a false impression that designing to accommodate for disabilities is to the detriment of users who do not have disabilities. This is not the case when accessibility is properly implemented. Consider an invention like the automatic door, which creates access for the entire community, from students carrying armfuls of textbooks to delivery people to anyone with mobility or dexterity impairments. Good websites use tools like this to increase usability and accessibility for every user.

In short, accessibility matters because it enables access for persons with disabilities. There are no excuses to justify the exclusion of persons with disabilities from virtual and physical environments. Yet, too often inaccessible web content perpetuates a “digital divide” that marginalizes website users with disabilities. Designing your website with accessibility in mind is one small step you can take to help bridge this digital divide.

Additional benefits of accessibility

The top priority of accessibility is to enable access to persons with disabilities. However, this is not the only benefit of an accessible website:

It enables recruitment: enhanced accessibility on Carleton websites enables prospective students with disabilities to explore Carleton websites and shows our commitment to providing access to website content, encouraging these prospective students to consider joining our Carleton community.
It enhances our reputation and sets a standard: not only do sites designed with accessibility in mind increase Carleton’s institutional reputation, it also sets a standard for other universities and institutions to follow suit and improve their own accessibility, leading to an overall more accessible digital environment.
It can prevent lawsuits: institutions and businesses are sued for having inaccessible content. Rather than waiting for this to happen, we can pre-emptively seek to eliminate inaccessible content, avoiding both the frustrations on the part of the claimant, and the need for legal action.
It’s the law: aside from the right of the user to sue over inaccessible content, Carleton also has legal obligations to meet under the 2005 Access for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). This act codifies the right of persons with disabilities to access.
It helps with search engine optimization (SEO): a lot of best practices for accessibility also happen to make web pages more appealing to search engines, encouraging them to direct more relevant traffic to your site.
Accessible websites are good websites: as mentioned above, making a site more accessible for someone with a disability makes it more accessible to everyone.

Video

Video Transcript

Module 1: About Accessibility - What is Accessibility?

Hello and welcome to module 1 of our accessibility training. This video focuses on defining accessibility and emphasizing its importance.

To start, let’s consider what we mean by accessibility. The accessibility glossary, produced by the Government of Canada’s Translation Bureau, defines an accessible website as:

“A website that follows Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and that allows persons with disabilities to use assistive technologies, including text-to-speech software, to enable and assist with web browsing.”

While the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines offer valuable guidance on how to design your website, let’s focus for now on the importance of enabling access for persons with disabilities.

You might think that disability is uncommon and therefore believe that an inaccessible website would only impact a few users. There are several issues with this way of thinking. First, disability is much more common than many people realize:

In Canada, 22% of people over 15 years of age have one or more disabilities
At Carleton, 10.9% of students are registered with the Paul Menton Centre as having a disability
Another 25% seek accommodations for temporary or ongoing disabilities directly from faculty
And 6.4% of the Carleton workforce identify with a disability

One reason why some underestimate the prevalence of disability is because of another assumption: that disabilities are always immediately and obviously apparent. This is not true. Some disabilities are categorized as “hidden” or “invisible” disabilities because they are often not perceived by others. This then leads to the person with the disability holding an unfair share of responsibility to educate others on their disability and to self-advocate for support.

Another false assumption some make is that designing websites that accommodate users with disabilities is to the detriment of users without disabilities. With properly implemented accessibility-focused design, this is not the case. As an example, consider inventions like the automatic door. This device creates access for the entire community from students carrying armfuls of textbooks to delivery people to anyone with a mobility or dexterity impairment. Accessible website design works in much the same way to increase usability and accessibility for every user.

In short, accessible websites are good websites. As new virtual spaces are created and come into use, these environments pose new challenges, too often furthering a “digital divide” between those who can access them and those who cannot. This digital divide marginalizes website users with disabilities, and while digital exclusion is a much larger and more complex issue, designing your website with accessibility in mind is one small step you can take to further inclusion and help bridge this digital divide.

While the top priority of accessibility is to enable access to persons with disabilities, there are a variety of secondary benefits that stem from implementing design practices that enhance accessibility.

Besides enabling prospective students with disabilities to access our Carleton websites, accessible websites demonstrate a commitment to providing digital access and support. A student who knows that their needs will be supported at Carleton is much more likely to consider joining our community than one who is unintentionally being excluded from our digital spaces.
Similarly to the previous point, enacting our commitment to accessibility both enhances our reputation, as well as sets a standard for other institutions. We can lead by example to help accessibility become a standard practice in digital communities.
Institutions and businesses have been sued for having inaccessible content. Preemptively seeking to eliminate inaccessible content both removes the need for legal action as well as the likelihood of an experience with our websites that would lead a user to file such a lawsuit.
Under the 2005 Access for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), Carleton has legal obligations to meet in terms of making things accessible. We’ll discuss the requirements of the AODA later on in this module.
Many best practices for accessibility also make web pages more attractive to search engines, encouraging them to direct more relevant traffic to your site.
As we discussed above, accessible websites are good websites. Accessible sites increase usability and create better overall virtual experiences for everyone.

Next: Accessibility challenges and barriers to access

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