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Accessibility

The University of Illinois System is committed to digital accessibility as a core value of equity and inclusion. By ensuring that our digital content is usable by people with disabilities, we remove barriers, support independence, and foster full participation in all aspects of university life. Together, we are building a more inclusive digital environment for our entire community.

Accessibility Resources for Faculty and Staff

University-Specific Resources

​Disclaimer

The resources provided on this page are intended to support general accessibility best practices and are believed to be accurate at the time of publication. However, accessibility policies, tools, and contacts may vary by campus. Please refer to the resources for your specific university or department to ensure the most current and applicable information.

UIUC IT Accessibility UIC Digital Accessibility UIS Digital Accessibility

Digital Accessibility Job Aids

Adobe PDF - Accessibility Best Practices

Microsoft Word - Accessibility Best Practices

Microsoft PowerPoint - Accessibility Best Practices

Web Development - Common Accessibility Issues

Screen Reader Accessibility - Ensuring Inclusivity

System Offices Shared Services - Color Accessibility

Digital Accessibility Overview Course Resources

How to Review a VPAT

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

This is an internationally recognized standards guide developed by the W3C to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG provides guidance on making digital content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users.

ARIA Authoring Practices Guide

This guide offers practical design patterns and code examples to help developers create accessible web interfaces using ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), a standard for providing additional semantic information for various HTML elements.

The following three resources are automated browser extensions that evaluate a given webpage and list the potential issues that are able to be programmatically determined. As with all automated accessibility checkers, they cannot be fully comprehensive, but they're fantastic for checking your work. The W3C provides a similar Markup Validation Service, except it runs as a standalone webpage that takes a URL as input.

The next two resources allow the user to view HTML structures that are pertinent to accessibility. Rather than automatically evaluating the page and enumerating the issues, they provide aid in more efficiently evaluating a page manually. ANDI is a single tool that provides detailed information on a variety of structures, while the Bookmarklets are a collection of individual utilities that each visually highlight specific HTML structures on the page.

The following resources aid the user in checking the contrast of foreground and background elements to ensure adequate contrast for readability.

Color Contrast Analyzer (CCA)

The Color Contrast Analyzer is a desktop application that will take a foreground and background color and provide information on the level of WCAG compliance as well as its contrast ratio.

WebAIM Color Contrast Checker

The WebAIM Color Contrast Checker performs the same kind of function as the CCA above, but it is hosted on a webpage rather than as a desktop app.

Colorzilla

Colorzilla is an extension that allows the user to grab the hex codes of various colors on a webpage, among providing other color-related utilities. It does not include contrast checking.

Coloring for Colorblindness

This page provides an interactive space to play with colors and palettes while also considering how they would be perceived by colorblind viewers.

Screen readers allow an unsighted user to perceive and interact with a computer or mobile device by only using the keyboard.

Similar to the screen reader is a text-to-speech utility such as Kurzweil 3000. These will also read text content aloud to the user, but they tend to be less full-featured than a screen reader.

The reverse of the text-to-speech tool is a speech recognition utility. A tool such as Dragon Naturally Speaking allows the user to speak their text input rather than using they keyboard to type it.

The university provides a system-wide license for the Aira Visual Interpreter App, a visual interpreting service that connects individuals who are blind or have low vision with trained professionals via secure video calls. By geofencing campus locations, Aira enables students, employees, and visitors to receive real-time visual support for navigating physical spaces, accessing printed materials, and participating fully in campus life. Any faculty, staff, student, or visitor can use Aira for free when physically calling the following campuses.

  • College of Medicine Peoria
  • College of Medicine Rockford
  • University of Illinois Chicago
  • University of Illinois Springfield
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

For more information, call the Aira customer support line at 1-800-835-1934 and mention “Campus Network”.

Training & Tutorials