Understanding Web Accessibility

Web content is considered accessible when all visitors — regardless of physical or developmental abilities or impairments — are able to access the presented information. The Brandeis website serves a diverse audience and our visitors use a variety of technologies to navigate our content.

Accessibility best practices apply to all web content you create in the CMS, as well as any documents you upload or link to on your site (Word, PDF, etc.).

Benefits of Accessibility

Well-designed, accessible websites and web content benefit everyone.

Equality

Making your content accessible means that all users can access it equally.

Opportunity

Many accessibility fixes make content inherently more searchable and user-friendly.

Facility

Most changes required to make content accessible are not difficult or time consuming, but make a huge impact to disabled users. The visual design often does not change or changes minimally.

Legality

Web accessibility is about justice. Federal laws require that institutions of higher learning provide accessible web interfaces, digital content and web applications. Educational institutions have unfortunately faced litigations for non-compliance with legal requirements for accessibility. By ensuring your own content is as accessible as possible, you are supporting the university’s responsibility to comply with federal regulations.

What is WCAG?

Brandeis strives to meet the standards for web accessibility known as WCAG 2.0 AA. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is a set of web accessibility guidelines published by the W3C, which is the main standards organization for the World Wide Web. WCAG is the most widely adopted standard for creating accessible web content. Check out a simplified checklist.