Program aids units to make Web sites accessible

With a Nov. 1 deadline looming to meet federal and campus standards in providing Web access for persons with disabilities, help is available from a cooperative campus program.

Called Web Accessibility for All, the federally funded effort brings together experts from the Center on Education and Work, and the McBurney Disability Resource Center to help ensure access to digital information and tear down technical barriers to access.

According to UW System policy, all campus Web pages must meet federal accessibility standards by Nov. 1 as a way to make the Web more accessible to people with vision, hearing or other disabilities.

Web Accessibility for All offers training on accessibility issues, consulting services and a free, user-friendly analysis of content. Its Web site is http://www.cew.wisc.edu/accessibility.

In addition to the collaborative effort to encourage Web access, the Division of Information Technology offers an online course and other resources at http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility.

Web access has been hampered by such things as the prevalence of so-called PDF documents, especially those created prior to 2000, which are inaccessible to people with visual or reading disabilities, according to Anne Gravel Sullivan, assistant researcher with the project.

“We’re trying to become a cutting-edge site,” Gravel Sullivan says. “We’ve got some creative approaches and insights for training people.”

Brad Kadel, who is blind and works on the project’s Web accessibility team, says the project aims to raise the campus awareness when it comes to constructing and posting Web pages.

“The emphasis remains on establishing an informed and proactive community on campus that will make accessible Web sites as universally recognized as curb cuts are today,” Kadel says.

During its first year, the program focused only on the Madison campus, but has now begun offering services to other UW System campuses, and plans to extend its reach nationally in fall 2004.