Website Accessibility Murrieta Valley Unified School District March, 2017 Website Accessibility

What does ‘Accessible’ mean? “The degree to which a website is available to as many people as possible.” Website accessibility is guided by internationally accepted expectations and standards known as Website Content Accessibility Guidelines - WCAG 2.0

Who Does Accessibility Benefit? Everyone 20% of the population have unique needs navigating their world. 1 in 5 people have accessibility issues due to disability or age Visual –blindness, low vision, color blindness Physical – loss of a limb, reduced/limited mobility, epilisy, vertigo Cognitive – ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, intellectual disabilities Auditory

WHY is ACCESSIBILITY IMPORTANT? OCR- U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act - 1990 Section 504 –1973 Rehabilitation Act guarantees rights of people with disabilities Section 508 – Amendment to Section 504 - 1998 requires accessible online content Title 11 – Prohibits discrimination based on disability U.S. Department of Justice issued new accessibility rules for websites in 2010 WCAG 2.0 Adopted in January, 2017 & goes into effect in January 2018 Accessibility is a civil right and we have an ethical and legal obligation to provide a comparable website experience for everyone.

Is this new? Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are not new The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) started in 1994 Accessibility requirements have been in place in the United Kingdom since 1995 and in the US since 1998 The current version of WCAG 2.0 was published in 2008 Web accessibility is required for doctors’ offices, recreational facilities, stores, restaurants, schools, colleges, airlines

MVUSD Accessibility Strategy Accessibility Policy on all websites Board Policy 1113 District-sponsored websites updated 2/17/17 Contract with Site Improve – weekly scans Dedicated Accessibility Team comprised of District Webmaster, Schoolwires, Technology Staff, Webmasters, Content Editors The goal is to address issues and make content accessible going forward This is an on-going process - not a project No website will ever be 100% accessible

So What are accessibility issues? Images require alt text describing content of image Links – self-describing links identifying the target of the link Headings on every page to organize content PDF’s Use of Color Blind person working on a computer in class

Making content ACCESSIBILe Fonts – Don’t use font styles such as bold, italics or underline to indicate importance Multi-media – video and audio must be close captioned if they are embedded on our site – otherwise, provide a link to the media on You Tube or another external site. Tables - Insert descriptive labels for columns and rows using HTML markup that indicates content of rows and columns

Images Use appropriate, descriptive ALT text for all images Don’t include “picture” or “image” in alt text Use simple, succinct language to describe exactly what the image is. No blinking images or animations Check the images on your home page in headlines Boy in a Grinch costume holds a Dr. Seuss book

Links & Downloads Links – self-describing Identify the target of the link i.e “click here for more information about sea lions" Not “click here” or “more info” For links to documents day “Download a copy of the calendar” or “Download a text- only version of this page” Use this Click here to go to the MVUSD website Not this http://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us/Domain/1

Headings Headings on every page to organize content Use H1 heading in Schoolwires styles Heading should describe topic or purpose of content

PDF PDFs – create from source documents Don’t scan – if the text cannot be copied it is is likely inaccessible. Save as PDF, not print to PDF. Format Word and PowerPoint documents with appropriate headings, tags and formatting and style options that are available in all Office programs

Use of COLOR Color contrast between text color and background Don’t use color alone to convey information

Resources & questions The international resource on web accessibility is the Web Accessibility Initiative MVUSD Website Accessibility training Staff/Instructional Technology/Schoolwires/Accessibility WCAG Overview Getting Started with Web Accessibility Accessibility Handbook