Digital Accessibility Basics

Thank you for helping WSU become digitally accessible. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Here’s what you can do now:

1. Learn about the Core Concepts.
2. Take the Digital Accessibility Assessment.
3. Contact your department’s or unit’s Digital Accessibility liaison to help create an inventory of documents and software that need to be digitally accessible. Think about the documents and software you use every day. If you don’t know who your liaison is, contact the Digital Accessibility team. We can let you know who to contact.

You are so appreciated! 

Here’s what you can do now:

1. Contact your department’s or unit’s Digital Accessibility Liaison to help create an inventory of documents and software that need to be digitally accessible. Think about the documents and software you use everyday. If you don’t know who your liaison is, contact the Digital Accessibility Team. We can let you know who to contact.
2. If you’ve done the inventory, work with your liaison to determine the documents or software that are essential and used often. This is where you’ll start making your materials accessible.
3. In the documentation that you discovered in Step 2, start with the low-hanging fruit. These are the elements that are quick and/or easy to fix (Headings, Lists, and Links).

Your list may seem daunting. Think progress, not perfection!

Fantastic! Start with the Digital Accessibility PowerPoint page, follow this list of tutorials for the low-hanging fruit (the Digital Accessibility team recommends you start with elements that are quick and relatively easy to fix).

• Headings.
• Lists.
• Links.
• How to use the PowerPoint Accessibility Checker.

There will be more tutorials for how to handle images and writing alt text, tables, shapes and SmartArt, videos, and equations coming soon! Watch the College of Medicine newsletter for more digital accessibility updates.

Fantastic! Start with the Digital Accessibility Word page follow this list of tutorials for the low-hanging fruit (the Digital Accessibility team recommends you start with elements that are quick and relatively easy to fix).

• Headings.
• Lists.
• Links.
• How to use the Word Accessibility Checker.

There will be more tutorials for images and writing alt text, tables, shapes and SmartArt, and equations coming soon! 

The Digital Accessibility team has a lot of tutorials in the hopper including ones for Outlook, Excel, equations, SmartArt, images and writing alt text, and color and color contrast.

Contact the College of Medicine Digital Accessibility team if you have questions, need one-on-one support, or need additional training.

It is a lot and will take time. Here are some tips to help you:

1. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Start with what you can do.
2. Progress, not perfection. We all have limited time and energy. Start with what is easiest for you to do in this moment.
   
   1. Start your inventory of high-level documents and software.
   2. Find out who is your department’s or unit’s Digital Accessibility liaison.
   3. Start with one element that is easiest to fix (heading, lists, or links).
   4. Start with the new documents you’re creating. Make those accessible as you create them.
   5. The idea is to start.
3. Make a plan for how you’re going to tackle the digital documents you work on every day. This is not a one-and-done project. It is an ongoing process.
4. Keep track of your progress. It’s easy to forget how much you’ve accomplished unless you keep track.