1

Rationale for an Accessible Website

Emily Mills, Donetha Meyers, Lindsey Morris, and Andrea Woudenberg-Harvey

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Arkansas

ETEC 5373: Designing Websites

Dr. Lisa Kidder

February 20, 2022

 2
Rationale for an Accessible Website

According to the 2016 Global Economics of Disability Annual Report, people with

disabilities account for one person in every five on the planet (Deque Systems, 2016). This

means that at some point in time, it is likely someone with a disability will be interacting with

your website. Creating websites with accessible design helps to ensure that these individuals

have improved access to the information and content they need when navigating a website.

Accessible design impacts those without disabilities as well, helping to create a more

user-centered web experience in which information is easier to access and the design is created

with the user in mind.

Technology is increasingly becoming an integral part of education. Many students use the

web to access lessons, watch lectures, take tests and quizzes, and engage with online learning

content. This is why accessibility is particularly important when working to create web-based

learning content for students. Content that is not accessible can make the online learning

experience difficult, or even impossible, for people with disabilities. When establishing web

publishing guidelines, it is crucial to keep in mind the many diverse needs of web users as well

as the barriers they may face when interacting with a website. Identifying the potential needs of

web users will help you to make a plan for specifically addressing these needs. In addition,

thinking of barriers users may face can help you to avoid features that make accessing websites

difficult for those with disabilities. While it can be difficult to know just where to start in order to

ensure accessibility, there are many standards and guidelines that can be referenced to support

online accessibility and help create an equitable learning experience for all.
 3
Barriers

There are many barriers that make accessing websites difficult. These barriers arise when

a website is unusable to one or more users. But what makes a website unusable?

Let’s take a look at a hypothetical student to see what kinds of barriers the website

presents. Martine is a student with hearing loss. The university has already provided her with

sign language interpreters and text interpreters of spoken language for her in-person lectures.

However, much of her coursework is conducted online, both synchronously and asynchronously.

Martine additionally wants and deserves the opportunity to access and enjoy all of the

university’s online content, such as videos of her school’s dean giving a speech, an interactive

online tour of the university’s newest building, or a livestream of the spring convocation. The

lack of captions, transcripts, or signing for video or audio content is a frequent barrier to her

education and student experience. When automated captions or transcripts are available, they

often contain errors that make comprehension difficult. Providing quality captions and transcripts

for all online media and sign language interpreters for live events is a way to ensure online user

equity for users like Martine.

Other students at the university may have cognitive, visual, or other physical impairments

that make accessing the university’s website or the content on it difficult. For example, an online

lecture or video without options to stop, pause, or slow the media is a challenge to students with

cognitive impairments who require a slower pace. A website that relies on images or has

improperly coded text is unusable to students with visual impairments who relies on screen

readers. A website that cannot be navigated using the keyboard or voice commands is a barrier to

students with limited hand mobility, such as a student who broke their hand or has a repetitive

stress injury.
 4
A variety of tools are available to assist students with disabilities to access online content.

However, many of these tools are constrained by websites’ layout, design, and coding. Because

fourteen percent of all students have a disability (Institution of Education Sciences, 2021),

keeping the needs of all students in mind when developing university website guidelines is

essential for providing education—as well as a rich school experience—to all.

Standards and Guidelines

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Understanding how technology accessible to all people with disabilities can feel

overwhelming. With that in mind, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed the Web

Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (World Wide Web Consortium, 2008), as well as an

accessibility ranking system, to ensure that websites can be created that meet the needs of all

users. W3C’s ranking system has three levels, with A being the most basic level of accessibility,

AA intermediate, and AAA high accessibility. Most universities are striving for the AA

accessibility ranking.

Using Martine as an example, let’s take a look at a set of A and AA WCAG guidelines.

Because Martine is a student who is experiencing hearing loss, this evaluation will show the

university’s likely current level of compliance and opportunities for improvement to ensure the

success of Martine.

WCAG Success Criterion 1.2.2 is specific to Level A compliance and stipulates that

captions are provided for pre-recorded audio content, including audio in videos (World Wide

Web Consortium, 2008). So, if Martine can’t hear parts of a video, she can instead read the

alternative text to get the overall description of the video content. Because this is the most basic
 5
level of compliance, the university likely already provides this alternative for pre-recorded

non-text content.

Success Criterion 1.2.4 scaffolds this to Level AA and involves the use of captions for all

live audio content in synchronized media. This would make live videos accessible to Martine,

allowing her to read along with live video content if she is having a hard time hearing it.

Americans with Disabilities Act

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also comes into play when dealing with

students and the barriers they may encounter with technology. The ADA states that people with

disabilities should have equal access to all activities (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990).

The Department of Justice has not included explicit instructions dealing with websites, but has

upheld rulings that websites need to be as accessible as an actual building (Deque Systems,

2016).

However, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was updated and two sections, 504 and 508, do

deal directly with education and technology and give guidelines for accessibility usage (General

Services Administration, 2021). Section 504 simply enforces that students with disabilities will

be given equal opportunity to achieve and be successful as those without disabilities.

Section 508 goes into much more detail about how to make access to technology

equitable. If we take our sample student, Martine, the Section 508 regulations for people who are

hard of hearing include such things as audio descriptions of images, closed captioning on videos,

and transcripts of any audio need to be available (General Services Administration, 2021). This

helps students like Martine because they are then able to read the information that they cannot

hear. If there are sounds that automatically play, then there needs to be a visual notice of that,

otherwise students may miss those sounds.

 6
All multimedia components need to have closed captioning. The user should be able to

choose a text only option if they wish (General Services Administration, 2021). This would mean

that students like Martine can read what is being said when they cannot hear while watching

videos or other media. They would also be able to choose to just read the information presented.

This also helps students who have difficulty seeing and would need others to read to them what

is going on since some things in video rely on sight to understand.

Section 508 also requires that any video should be able to be paused or restarted at the

user's discretion. Also, the user needs to be able to adjust the volume of media (General Services

Administration, 2021). This helps not only students like Martine who are hard of hearing, but

those with cognitive disabilities as well. Being able to replay or completely restart a part that was

hard to understand helps students understand the information and feel included and valued.
 7
References

American with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. (1990).

https://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm

Deque Systems. (2016, July 26). The Essential Guide to Digital Accessibility.

https://www.deque.com/blog/infographic-essential-guide-digital-accessibility/

General Services Administration. (2021, August 11). IT Accessibility Laws and Policies.

Section508.gov. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from

https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/

Institution of Education Sciences. (2021, May). COE - Students With Disabilities. National

Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg

World Health Organization. (2021, April 1). Deafness and hearing loss. World Health

Organization. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from

https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss

World Wide Web Consortium. (2008, December 11). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/