What Is Digital Accessibility?

Introduction

Digital accessibility work is crucial in many fields, but especially in the field of education. This work helps to ensure that students and educators can fully participate in the digital world, regardless of their abilities, without facing barriers to using online digital content, platforms, and services. 

It goes without saying that accessibility is a human right recognized by global disability and civil rights laws. By fostering a more inclusive web, we unlock digital spaces for everyone, regardless of their abilities. How Accessible Is the Web: Key Internet Accessibility Stats [2025]

As Tim Berners-Lee, Founder Director of the World Wide Web Consortium and inventor of the World Wide Web famously said, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” 

Digital accessibility can specifically provide equal access to websites, applications, and documents for people with disabilities by removing barriers to perception, understanding, navigation, and interaction.

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. This represents 16% of the world’s population, or 1 in 6 of us. 

And according to the US government Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, more than 1 in 4 adults (28.7 percent) in the United States have some type of disability. This website provides these examples:

• 13.9 percent of U.S. adults have a cognitive disability with serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions (learning disabilities, dyslexia, Autism, attention deficit, memory loss, etc.)
• 12.2 percent of U.S. adults have a mobility disability with serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs.
• 6.2 percent of U.S. adults are deaf or have serious difficulty hearing.
• 5.5 percent of U.S. adults have a vision disability with blindness or serious difficulty seeing even with glasses.

The website Disability Prevalence by State in the United States, provides statistics per age group. In 2023, there were roughly “21,098,000 (±116,440 margin of error) out of 187,855,800 non-institutionalized males or females, ages 21-64, all races, regardless of ethnicity, across all levels of education in the United States that had reported a disability.”

Federal and State Laws Aligned With Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1, Level AA)

The W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1, Level AA), released in 2018, is a global standard for web and mobile accessibility, followed by colleges and universities, government agencies, corporations, and non-profit organizations around the world. In the United States it has been codified into the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II. This law says, to avoid creating barriers for people with disabilities, state and local governments must ensure that their online services, programs, and activities—provided through websites and mobile apps—are accessible. WCAG is also a part of Colorado state regulation HB21-1110.

WCAG can be best explained by discussing its four essential guiding principles of accessibility. These are known by the acronym POUR. On a website, mobile app, digital platform, or digital content:

1. Perceivable: Can everyone "see" or "hear" the information?
2. Operable: Can everyone use the buttons, links, and main menu navigation in the digital product or service?
3. Understandable: Is the user interface and digital content easy to comprehend?
4. Robust: Will the digital product or service work well with different assistive technologies, now and in the future?

How do I make a website or app more accessible?

The following list provides some essential things for web and mobile accessibility for people who have visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive disabilities, who may use assistive technologies.

1. Text Alternatives: All meaningful images need descriptive "alt text." Complex images of text use long descriptions to describe information that conveys meaning in infographics, charts, graphs, and for math and science equations and formulas. 
2. Color Contrast: Sufficient contrast between text and background page color.
3. Keyboard Accessibility: Any component that can be accessed with a mouse needs to be able to be accessed by a keyboard. All items that you can tab to like buttons, links and form fields must be accessible with a keyboard. These items need to display focus indicators when tabbed to. 
4. Logical Headings: Use headings (H1, H2, in sequential ascending order) correctly for page structure. 
5. Form Labels: All form fields need to have clear, associated labels.
6. Meaningful Link Text: Link text should clearly describe its purpose or destination in a meaningful way. Avoid using "Click Here" or “Learn More.
7. Accessible video and podcasts: Videos with audio need captions and audio descriptions. Live videos need live captions. Audio podcasts need captions and transcripts. It is important not to set the media to autoplay. 
8. Responsive Design: Content must adapt to different screen sizes and zooming - without horizontal scrolling.
9. Dynamic Text: Users should be able to adjust text size and spacing (line height, letter spacing) without issues.

Why Is This Important?

Digital accessibility improves overall user experience for everyone, making online content more intuitive and user-friendly. Besides being required by law, working on digital accessibility at colleges and universities can remove barriers for students and educators so that they can access content within LMS courses, websites, mobile apps, documents, OER, and publisher platforms. Everyone needs to be provided with access to information and to be given the opportunity to participate fully in online educational activities. 

Improving accessibility can help people with disabilities to navigate the web and interact with content more effectively. Key user groups that benefit from digital accessibility work are the following:

• Visually impaired: Rely on screen readers, screen magnification, high-contrast settings, and scalable fonts to interact with content.
• Deaf and hard-of-hearing: Benefit from audio and video captions, transcripts, audio descriptions, and visual alerts.
• Mobility/Motor-impaired: Navigate using keyboards, adaptive switches, or speech recognition tools rather than a mouse.
• Cognitive and neurodiverse: Gain from clear layouts, consistent navigation, and reduced cognitive load.