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Do the right thing.
Making sure all users can access the information and services we provide is the right thing to do, as well as our legal responsibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
College of Engineering Digital Accessibility site: Includes Accessibility First Aid Kit with task-specific resources, templates, trainings and other ways to get involved
University of Michigan Web Accessibility: LOTS of great guidance, created and curated for university use cases.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). (U-M websites are held to the WCAG 2.1AA standard)
See also:
See also:
Writing for accessibility: Because we're communicators, and at its core accessibiility helps us communicate
Google Sites Accessibility: Google sites are easy to build, but not inherently accessible. Before you build, consider alternatives and educate yourself on known issues.
Select Tools
Select Tools
Accessibility check sheet and severity scale: This is the spreadsheet and severity scale we use in combination with other scanning tools assess new and existing websites and triage remediation.
Accessibility onboarding slide deck: High-level presentation of accessibility: What it is, why we care, the university's IT accessibility SPG. References Accessibility onboarding google doc for more detail, examples and resources.
Captioning and Descriptions
Captioning and Descriptions
There are lots of tools to help you generate "text alternatives" for visual content. These help bring deliver the information presented in graphics, videos, etc. to people who have visual impairments. Here are a few specialty tools. They've gotten positive feedback from the U-M accessibility community but are untested by C&M at this time.
Captioning:
Web Captioner works with Chrome browser.
Rev.com: paid service that C&M uses
Create transcript from captions: YouTube no longer lets you toggle timestamps off in your transcript (boo.) This tool will strip the timestamps from your text so you can convert your captions to transcript and/or text description.
Charts & Graphs
Charts & Graphs
Relational Diagram guidelines: Guidelines for creating description files for various relational diagrams, including flow charts, hierarchies, venn diagrams, and cycles.
Graph guidelines: Same site, but these apply to popular graphs, including bar graphs. line graphs, pie charts and scatter plots
Alternative (Alt) text
Alternative (Alt) text
One size does not fit all. Make sure your alt text provides context for the image it's describing There's more information in our Images section, but this article on the need for context in alt text sums it up well.
Screen Readers
Screen Readers
VoiceOver cheat sheet (iOS)
TalkBack cheat sheet (Android)
Global Accessibility Checkers
Global Accessibility Checkers
Automated tools can't detect every accessibility issue, but they're a great place to start.
A11y check spreadsheet (Google sheet) for reporting and tracking issues
spreadsheet in downloadable (.xlsx) format
WAVE Accessibility Tool (website, also available as a Chrome and Firefox browser extension)
Simulators
Simulators
NoCoffee (Chrome) color blindness and low vision simulator
Color Contrast
Color Contrast
TPGi Colour contrast Analyser (available through U-M Managed software center - Search on "color contrast")
Color Safe (great for selecting accessible color palettes)
WebAIM color contrast checker (accounts for differences in font size.)
Can also be used to check contrast in graphics before they're published to the web. color-picker demo (video 1:35)
Contact
Contact
Amy Whitesall (amycarss@umich.edu)
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