What is Digital Accessibility?

Digital accessibility provides equitable and inclusive access to WSU’s digital content and technology. It means digital content and technology can be easily accessed, navigated, and understood by all people, including those with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive disabilities.

WSU Accessibility Statement

Accessible means all “students, faculty, staff, and visitors have access to…technology and information needed to have an equal opportunity to succeed in their education, employment, and community activities.”

Digital Accessibility Benefits Everyone

Incorporating accessibility standards makes digital content and technology universally accessible to all. Accessible content and technology reduce the barriers by explicitly making it possible – by design – for every WSU student, faculty, staff, and visitor to engage with digital content and explore all the possibilities the WSU community has to offer.

WSU Policy and Procedures

WSU has engaged in a continuous process to update digital accessibility policy and procedures to best serve its community and to meet state and federal requirements.

WSU digital accessibility policy and procedure for ensuring compliance and implementation is BPPM 10.45 Electronic and Information Technology (EIT) Accessibility (formerly EP07 and BPPM 85.55).

Digital Accessibility is Everyone’s Responsibility

All WSU employees are responsible for making sure the digital content they create or publish (such as email, documents, multimedia, and websites) is accessible and provides an inclusive experience.

Although assistive technologies are available to help people with disabilities access digital content and technology, those technologies work best when digital content is designed with accessibility in mind.

These resources will help you make your digital content and technology accessible to everyone.

Core Concepts

These core concepts address a majority of the barriers to digital content and technology. Review these concepts to improve the accessibility of your digital content.

Assessment

Digital Accessibility assessment is required and must be completed yearly per university policy.

Testing Tools

These resources help you test and check your digital content and technology to ensure its accessibility. Become familiar with testing your particular content type.

Guides

These guides provide more information to help you when addressing the accessibility of digital content and technology.

Resources

Digital Accessibility Fundamentals

W3C Foundation Modules

This curriculum provides a general introduction to web accessibility. It is designed for any student with a basic understanding of computers and the Web. It addresses many different audiences, including people with different technical skills and knowledge about the topic.

  • Module 1: What is Web Accessibility
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    Introduces stories of people with disabilities, defines and scopes web accessibility, and introduces its interrelations with other disciplines.

    Categories: Resource, W3C Foundation Modules, What is Digital Accessibility Tags: Article
  • Module 2: People and Digital Technology
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    Introduces some accessibility features and barriers, presents some adaptive strategies and assistive tools, and introduces the components of web accessibility.

    Categories: Resource, W3C Foundation Modules, What is Digital Accessibility Tags: Article
  • Module 3: Business Case and Benefits
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    Introduces the business case for web accessibility and presents some benefits, such as enhancing your brand, increasing market reach, driving innovation, and minimizing legal risk.

    Categories: Resource, W3C Foundation Modules, What is Digital Accessibility Tags: Article
  • Module 4: Principles, Standards, and Checks
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    Introduces the principles of web accessibility, as well as the international W3C Accessibility standards, and how these are developed. Provides hands-on experience checking how web pages have implemented the standards or not.

    Categories: Resource, W3C Foundation Modules, What is Digital Accessibility Tags: Article
  • Module 5: Getting Started with Accessibility
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    Provides an overview of organizational planning and managing considerations to integrate accessibility throughout the web production process, and of different accessibility roles and responsibilities involved.

    Categories: Resource, W3C Foundation Modules, What is Digital Accessibility Tags: Article

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  • Managing a meeting’s accessibility in Teams 2023
    Source: WSU Percipio

    Microsoft Teams includes several features designed to enhance your meeting’s accessibility. You can blur your video’s background, and even apply a standard or custom background image. You can also generate live captions to see who is speaking and what they are saying. Learn how to use these features in Teams 2023 in this video.

    Categories: Captioning, Multimedia, Percipio Trainings, Resource, Streaming (live or real-time) Tags: Video
  • Top tips for hosting accessible and inclusive online events
    Source: GOV.UK: Accessibility in government

    Accessibility fosters inclusivity, allowing all participants to engage fully, regardless of their abilities. In this post we share some top tips on how you can plan, design and host accessible and inclusive online meetings.

    Categories: Multimedia, Resource, Streaming (live or real-time) Tags: Article

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  • ADA Video Compliance Checklist
    Source: A11y Collective

    A11y Collective’s ADA video compliance checklist to ensure accessibility and avoid legal risks. Get practical steps that work.

    Categories: Audio and Video, Audio Description, Captioning, Multimedia, Resource, Transcripts Tags: Article
  • How to make videos and audio accessible
    Source: Pope Tech

    Learn what accessible audio and video need to be accessible plus our suggestion for the easiest way to make accessible videos.

    Categories: Audio and Video, Audio Description, Captioning, Core Concepts, Multimedia, Resource, Transcripts Tags: Article, dec-2025
  • Making Audio and Video Media Accessible
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    This resource explains how to make media accessible, whether you develop it yourself or outsource it. It helps you figure out which accessibility aspects your specific audio or video needs, provides project management guidance, and includes requirements from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standard.

    Categories: Audio and Video, Audio Description, Captioning, Core Concepts, Multimedia, Resource, Transcripts Tags: Article, dec-2025
  • Planning Audio and Video Media
    Source: W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative

    Figure out which accessibility aspects your specific audio or video needs (captions, description, a transcript, etc.).

    Categories: Audio and Video, Audio Description, Captioning, Core Concepts, Multimedia, Resource, Transcripts Tags: Article, dec-2025
  • The Role of Captions and Transcripts in Accessibility
    Source: AFixt

    This post will explore why captions and transcripts are critical for accessibility, how they align with legal requirements like WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), and best practices for implementing them effectively.

    Categories: Audio and Video, Captioning, Core Concepts, Multimedia, Resource, Transcripts Tags: Article
  • Top 10 Common Accessibility Issues in Websites
    Source: AFixt

    But despite good intentions, many websites fall short of compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and laws like Section 508.

    Categories: Captioning, Color & Color Contrast, Core Concepts, Images, Links, Multimedia, Resource, Transcripts, Web Design & Development, Web Development Tags: Article