Web Accessibility: It's all about people

Corrie Rhyasen Erdman, Community Learning Network

1 12 December 2023

CLN has been on a learning journey to improve the accessibility of our website and digital documents. Maybe you’ve heard the term “web accessibility” or “digital accessibility”. According to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) the international body who develops standards and guidelines for building an accessible web:

“Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so people with disabilities can use them. More specifically, people can:
⦁ perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web
⦁ contribute to the Web”

It’s a powerful term that is all about people! The primary goal is to ensure that all people have equal access to computer-based and web-based information and activities. Web accessibility includes all disabilities that affect access to the Web including:

Hearing
Cognitive
Neurological
Physical
Speech
Visual

When we use a web accessibility lens, we consider the challenges of users with disabilities. Then, we intentionally use design features to reduce or eliminate barriers users may face in interacting with our web content or digital documents. Check out the following videos to learn more about somebody who:

cannot use their arms and uses a mouthstick or speech-to-text to type.
cannot hear well and uses captions to watch videos.
cannot see well and uses a screen reader to read aloud what's on the screen.

The internet has such great potential to even the playing field for people with all types of abilities. There are guidelines we can follow to make online spaces more accessible. And when we ignore these guidelines, people with disabilities face barriers and may even be blocked from using websites or online documents.

Making Digital Spaces Accessible

In Canada, 22% of people over the age of 15 have a disability. That’s 6.2 million individuals who have one or more disabilities.

The federal government and many provinces (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia), have enacted accessibility legislation that includes web accessibility for people with disabilities. It applies to government bodies and people/businesses contracted by the government.

The legislation is based on the internationally recognized principles outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Many of the guidelines are geared towards web developers. You don’t have to be a web developer to assess your web content. In fact, you can start right away to make sure your web content and documents can be used by anyone with any type of disability.

How can you get started making your web content accessible?

Any documents on your website can be easily formatted to be read by screen readers. Microsoft has a guide for making Word documents accessible. Their top strategies include:

Use headings to convey meaning and structure in a document.
Use Styles headings so people using screen readers can quickly navigate the document. Use Styles rather than font size and bold commands to create the appearance of headings. *Watch how a screen reader interprets text that does and doesn’t use Styles headings.
Add descriptive text to images. “Alt text” is a description of an image for users of screen readers. Good descriptive text briefly describes the image in the context of the topic. *Here is a good article about how to write good alt text.
Use meaningful descriptions for link text so it is clear where the link will go. *Tips for providing descriptive link text

All of these strategies can be applied to your webpages when you are adding or changing your web content. CLN is learning about these strategies and working to improve our web content and digital documents for our CALP Portal users. Interestingly, making these changes and adding accessibility features benefit people without permanent disabilities as well, including people with:

declining dexterity and coordination
low literacy or those learning English
new and infrequent users
mobile phone users
temporary disabilities (broken limb, concussion,…)
in spaces with distractions

What else is CLN doing to improve web accessibility?

Have you ever used any of the settings in the “Accessibility” button on the CALP Portal?

The CALP Portal has settings users can adjust based on their viewing and interactivity needs. Explore the options to change how you see or listen to the content on the CALP Portal pages.

[untitled] Activate the “Screen Reader” to listen to your favourite e-learning.
Forgot your glasses? Increase the text size.
Try one of the Dyslexia fonts to see if it improves your reading experience.
Hide images to reduce data usage when on your phone or don't have wifi.

These are only a small handful of accessibility features on the CALP Portal. Be curious and check for yourself if there are features that improve your experience interacting on the CALP Portal.

The W3C website provides an Accessibility Fundamentals Overview which is a great place to start in order to learn more about how you can make your online spaces accessible to learners and other users interested in your work.

CLN continues to learn more about accessibility, and if you have ideas you’d like to see us use to improve your accessibility in our online spaces we would like to hear from you! You can contact me at training@calp.ca.

Corrie Rhyasen Erdman
Training Manager
training@calp.ca