Accessibility Awareness

You're invited!

Mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day on Thursday, May 17! Join educators, designers, and technologists around the US who will be taking an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack thereof). Instructions included.

Editor's note:

Accessibility is more than our legal responsibility: it's about ensuring that the courses we shape and deliver are barrier-free and inclusive for all of our students. 

By
Domi Enders, Associate Director - Learning Resources and Academic Technologies
May 15, 2018
invitation to global accessibility awareness day
About GAAD

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is held the third Thursday of each May. It's designed to promote greater awareness of accessibility issues and to reinforce our commitment to creating accessible digital learning experiences for ALL of our students.

Join educators, designers, and technologists around the US in participating in these "accessibility awareness" activities:

Go Mouseless For An Hour

Go ahead and unplug your mouse and only use your keyboard alone (tab/shift tab, arrow keys, enter and spacebar) to navigate and interact with your favorite websites and applications. If you use a touchpad, trackpad or similar input method, disable it, and use the keyboard instead.

Visit and navigate one of your favorite or most visited websites:

  • Is there a visible focus indicator (i.e., do you know where you are) at all times as you navigate each screen using the tab and shift tab keys?

  • Are you able to interact with every element that receives focus using the keyboard alone?

  • If there is any element that provides functionality if you hover over it with your mouse, such as revealing a tooltip or a set of actions, can you display this strictly using the keyboard alone?

Surf The Web With A Screen Reader For An Hour

There are a number of free/open source screen readers available for Windows and Mac users.

  • Windows users: one of the more popular ones is NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA); download the software and learn some of NVDA’s documented basic keystrokes.

  • Mac users: there’s a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver on your system; you can turn turn it on in Preferences; review the Getting Started guide.

On May 17, unplug your mouse (blind users do not use the mouse), launch your screen reader, and spend an hour using some of your favorite sites strictly using the keyboard (tab/shift tab, arrow keys, enter and spacebar) and not the mouse/trackpad. Now turn off your screen and depend strictly on the information conveyed by the screen reader.

GAAD