Introduction
At Carleton, we strive to be a more accessible community. This aspiration allows us to form deeper connections with one another as we work through stigma and barriers, and to seek equity and justice. We also look at creating accessible websites as creating good websites.
In the words of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: “Disability is a part of the human experience.” We all endure, either chronically or temporarily, disabilities from a broken arm to colour-blindness to the inability to hear. Without seeking to minimize the disabilities of some over others, consider the idea that the automatic door-opener at the entrance to a building is very useful to a person carrying a pile of textbooks as well as the person who is accessing the building in a wheelchair.
All websites create barriers, so we never talk of sites as being 100% accessible or 100% not accessible. Instead, we aim to make sites as accessible as possible.
Disability and ability
We encourage everyone to watch the first sixty seconds of this video.
Outline and Aims
When it comes to web accessibility there are essentially two parts – the code and the content. Here in Web Services we provide the accessible code as part of your CMS website. All of our templates meet AODA requirements.
The content is up to the web administrator of each individual website. When it comes to creating accessible web content we suggest you focus on five main areas:
- Strategy
- Text
- Images
- Tables
- Videos
By the end of this workshop you will:
- Be aware of some of the issues around accessibility when it comes to the web
- Know the accessibility requirements for main content areas on a website (text, images, video)
- Know how to create optimally accessible web content