Who is Affected by This Policy?
Per the Information and Communication Technology Accessibility Policy, "All those engaged with producing or using UO communication and information technologies" must ensure their technologies are accessible. The ICT Accessibility Program Procedures expands on these requirements:
“All University faculty, staff, and student employees who create new or modify existing University online content must use good faith efforts to ensure compliance with prevailing national standards (e.g., WCAG 2.0) on all UO public web pages used to conduct University programs, services, or activities”
It is the responsibility of each department that the content they publish on their public-facing websites on the uoregon.edu domain conforms to accessibility requirements, with special focus on actively maintained content. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Department homepages and informational pages, e.g. information on course offerings
- Blogs and news pages
- PDFs, videos, and other interactive or downloadable content hosted on these pages
The policies are specifically focused on the University’s web presence, but will expand in breadth to include course material and other technologies. ICT Accessibility Program recommends designing new content from the ground-up to be accessible whenever possible; this promotes better design and comprehension for all audiences, including those who may have disabilities that are not immediately apparent.
Here are some guidelines to help you follow UO accessibility requirements.
Website and Content Owners
- Be familiar with the basics of creating accessible content. Know what alt text is, and add it to all images that you upload. Ensure images and videos do not contain any text, which could be missed by a user with limited vision. Tab through your site to make sure everything is fully navigable using the keyboard in a clear and logical way.
- Consider accessibility when choosing file formats. Could that PDF instead be created as a web page?
- Include a way for your website's audience to contact you with accessibility issues. People with novel combinations of disabilities may not be able to use your website, even with accessibility features in place.
- It is your responsibility to be proactive in maintaining an accessible web presence. It is not enough to change content after-the-fact in response to a complaint.
Developers and Designers
- Choose accessible technologies. Website themes provided by University Communications will have accessibility functionality built-in.
- Provide structured page components within the CMS. Wide-open rich text editors give content creators the ability to unintentionally build inaccessible content. By providing prebuilt tools and layouts, there is less risk of inaccessible content, and also provides a more consistent user experience and branding across pages.
- Test frequently, during and after development. As with any other development task, the earlier accessibility issues are caught, the less refactoring is required.
Technology Users
- Report an accessibility concern if you have issues accessing any part of the content. The UO community is deeply committed to providing an accessible web presence, and if you are unable to use a digital resource for any reason, other people may be unable to use it, too. We want to know about it.