Overview

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal law that requires that all public entities (including public institutions of higher education) make goods and services accessible for all individuals. The ADA has published guidelines for making the online environment accessible. These guidelines are explained in layman’s terms.

Compliance

Fundamentally, a website complies with ADA when it meets the following conditions:

• The information it presents is perceivable by all users.
• All users can operate the interactive portions of the website.
• All users can understand the website.
• The website can be accessed just as easily from a smart phone as a desktop computer, or any other device.

These conditions are each addressed by a set of guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization dedicated to improving the Web. The guidelines are known as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and the most current recommendations are version 2.1, also known as WCAG 2.1.

Perceivable

Websites need to be designed so that all users have the ability to perceive the information presented.

Visual Impairment

Visual impairment ranges from full blindness, temporary blindness, color blindness, or situations when visual attention needs to be elsewhere. Using text is a best practice for visual impairment, as screen reading technology can easily transform alphabetic text into spoken words.

When creating informational text for an online environment, use the following criteria:

• Use styles and headings appropriately
• Do not use color alone to convey information
• If using color, ensure that your contrast ratio is high enough
• HTML documents are most accessible. Word files or PDFs are less accessible. Most Learning Management Systems (LMS) have built-in HTML editors. Learn how to use the HTML editor with proper headings for maximum accessibility.

Other visual information also needs to be perceptible. When including images, use Alt-Text to describe the pertinent information conveyed by the image. If the image is purely decorative, do not enter any Alt-Text.

General recommendations are to keep Alt-Text short because screen readers will read the entire Alt-Text description, and some do not have an option to skip (this is the reason to not use Alt-Text for purely decorative images). If it is necessary to provide a lengthy description of an image for teaching purposes, options include linking to an audio description of the image or providing a link to a full text description. The W3C is proposing specific guidelines for providing useful text alternatives.

Auditory Impairment

Auditory impairment ranges from permanent deafness, temporary hearing loss, or situations where auditory information is either not perceivable (in a noisy environment) or desirable (in a quiet library).

Provide text-based equivalents for all relevant auditory information. Captions are best practice for videos. Transcripts are best practice for purely audio information.

Operable

In general, this guideline is not one that faculty typically need to consider, as good LMS systems are already operable through multiple interfaces and input devices.

However, it is good practice to keep in mind that not everyone will interact with your online curriculum the same way. Using “click here” is only relevant for a person using a mouse. Use more inclusive language, such as “follow this link,” which does not privilege a type of interface over others.

Understandable

Your curriculum needs to be understandable to the target population. In general, this means using simple and clear language, avoiding unnecessary jargon and acronyms. Technical terms and common acronyms should be explained in layman’s terms. A best practice is to develop a glossary for important terms and link to the glossary definition when using the term or acronym.

Another consideration is how you provide links to other web locations. Screen readers will read out hyperlinks letter by letter, which can be very tedious to listen to, especially when links are long. Instead of including URLs, turn them into a hyperlink that uses descriptive text.

Robust

Like “Operable,” this guideline is one that has minimal impact on faculty. It focuses primarily on the interaction between the website and developing technology, and a good LMS will be robust. An example of robust web design is a web page that is equally functional on a smart phone and a desk top computer, and that can be used by technology that has not yet developed.

HTML is one of the more robust file formats, which is another reason to present your curriculum in this format as opposed to Word or PDF.

A Word of Caution

This page has presented basics of making your online information accessible to all users. However, it is crucial to keep in mind that simply following these guidelines contributes to a mindset that simplifies disability into simple categories. Human impairments are as diverse as humans themselves, and focusing on one type of impairment over others (as this page does) does a disservice to this diversity. Oswal and Meloncon (2017) argue that checklists like WCAG 2.1, Quality Matters Rubrics, and Universal Design frameworks emphasize an ideology of normalcy instead of one of inclusion. I highly recommend their essay if you are interested in their thoughts on inclusion and accessibility. Checklists are important starting points, not ending points for creating accessible spaces.