What is Accessibility?
Use this section to increase your base knowledge of what, why, and how accessibility takes form.
What is Digital Accessibility?
- Developing content – PowerPoints, websites, Word documents, etc – in a way that people with disabilities can successfully use them just as well as a non-disabled person.
Why Should I Think About Accessibility?
- Everyone, regardless of who they are or their specific scenario, is welcome at Tufts and deserves accommodation and equal access to all of Tufts content.
- It’s Tufts policy (and in some cases, the law).
Is it a Lot of Work?
- It’s not! Many of the guidelines are basic things you should be doing already, like putting alt text on images.
- There are checklists made for you – you just need to follow them.
- Here is WCAG’s official list.
- Each section on this website has guidelines for you to look at.
- To get started, look at this one page checklist that you can bookmark and refer to before publishing your work.
Are There Side Benefits?
Yes! Accessibility helps everyone, not just people with disabilities.
- On the subway or in a loud cafe? Transcripts and captions help people watch videos in places where they can’t get the audio.
- Looking at a scanned textbook and want to find a specific section? Accessible PDFs let students quickly search and find what they’re working on.
- Need to see a chart, but your internet isn’t good enough for the picture to load? Alt text will describe the image instead.
- Want to drive traffic to Tufts websites? Adding page titles and alt text increases SEO.