Welcome to…assistive technology and equity!

an individual typing with a braille writing device
Image from person using braille writer photo – Free Québec Image on Unsplash (by Sigmund on UnSplash)

How much did you know about digital accessibility prior to this week? Was this ever a topic you considered previously?

Prior to this week, I did not know much about digital accessibility. The extent of my knowledge about digital accessibility was the usage of subtitles and screen reading devices. This is a highly important topic in education as digital resources need to be accessible to all. As our course readings this week explained, the importance of digital accessibility comes down to the facts that it’s “the law, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s a better experience for all” (McCue). I find this statement to be correct as everyone has a right to access any resource that they desire. As a future educator, I will educate myself on how to ensure that the resources that I provide to be digitally accessible for everyone to use. This blog post is already helping me learn more about the implementation of digital accessibility!

One resource that I found helpful to ensure digital accessibility with this blog post was this website, How to write better alt-text descriptions for accessibility – The Big Hack. This website provided insight on how to create beneficial alt-text descriptions. In sum, a good alt-text description is specific, brief, and less than 125 characters. I followed this guidance in the alt-text description that I created for the image earlier in this blog post.

Are there any digital accessibility practices that surprised you? Why?

Yes, I was surprised that colour is a digital accessibility practice. I did not expect this as I thought that the only digital accessibility practices were text, images, video, and audio. However, upon reflection, it does make sense that colour is a digital accessibility practice as everyone sees colour differently (which is so interesting!) I now know that digital accessibility practices include…

  • Text: allows screen-reader, but requires proper headings
  • Images: must be high-quality and have alt-text for screen-readers
  • Video and audio: must have captions and/or transcript
  • Colour: must pass colour contrast checker

The website, WebAIM: Contrast Checker, provides a contrast checker. A contrast check is a way that you can check to ensure that your chosen colours are digitally accessible. If the color does not pass the contrast checker, then I would suggest using a different colour to ensure digital accessibility.

Why do you think many digital accessibility practices aren’t more well-known or commonly used?

I think that many digital accessibility practices aren’t more well-known or commonly used because people are unknowledgeable about how to implement them. I find that if people were more educated on how to use digital accessibility practice that they would be more commonly used. This was my situation, I was just unaware of the practices and how to properly use them. In reality, it is simple to use digital accessibility practices (once you know what they are and how to use them). In my opinion, workshops for digital accessibility practices should be mandatory for university students and at workplaces that use technology. Having digital accessibility practice workshops would provide people with hands-on experience creating resources and websites that follow digital accessibility practices.

H5P video of a virtual science demonstration

This virtual science demonstration video was an opportunity for me to utilize digital accessibility practices by creating captions for a video.

Until next time!

Kyra