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Small steps to improve digital accessibility


A wide variety of disabilities affect people’s capacity to take in words and photos and can range from major to minor and from temporary to permanent. It may feel overwhelming to produce digitally accessible content for everyone, but there are plenty of small steps you can take. Make your web content more accessible by following these quick and simple steps.

  • Use more alt text for images. Screen readers read websites aloud for those with visual impairments, but without image descriptions screen readers may only read the useless file name. In order to describe images fully and accurately, try adding alt texts that communicate both context and function.
  • Don’t use color to create meaning. Those with color blindness are not going to be able to pick out correct lines or bars to read charts and graphs properly if color is the only differentiator. Make sure you are using labels as well. Patterns might be another option to consider, too.
  • Use captioning, transcripts and audio descriptions for videos. Video services like Panopto or YouTube will auto-caption videos with good sound quality with about 70 percent accuracy. To achieve 100 percent accuracy, you should download and correct the file manually.

To learn more simple steps to digital accessibility, visit https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/news/digital-accessibility-can.
Join the discussion at this month's Graduate Studies Lunch and Learn Brown Bag on Tuesday, August 6 from 1-2pm.



7/26/2019
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