As a web consultant, it’s my job to remind designers, clients, and developers the importance of making websites accessible to persons with disabilities. These accessibility concerns are not just recommendations to be taken lightly, but carry extreme importance in web development—particularly for institutions of higher education like MIT.
Earlier this month, Penn State came under fire from the National Federation for the Blind who have filed a complaint against Penn State for discrimination against blind students and faculty. The press release discusses how much of the technology at the school, including websites for the library, disability services, and course management system, is not fully accessible to the blind. Other technologies such as “smart” podiums and subcontracted banking services are also non-compliant for students and staff with visual disabilities.
Making technology available and accessible to all is not only the right thing to do, but we are legally required to do so according to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act that requires universities that accept Federal funding to offer equal access to their programs and services. We, as technologists, communicators, developers, and designers, must be advocates for accessibility and become examples of inclusive technology implementations.
We must make sure that the information and tools we provide to our communities are available to all using good design choices, coding implementation, and alternate content means such as closed-captioning or descriptions of elements to help those with disabilities participate equally online.
MIT’s Adaptive Technology Information Center (ATIC) has great resources available to the community for satisfying these goals. This IS&T service provides information technology resources and services specifically designed to address the needs of MIT community members and visitors with disabilities, including accessibility reviews and testing of websites, multimedia, and software for MIT departments, labs, and centers.
We encourage the community to regularly use this service to continue to make websites and technologies available to all!
This edited post was first published on the MIT WebPub blog on November 29, 2010.