Digital Accessibility Literacy Skills: Reading, Writing, and Producing Accessible Media

Engaging with specific digital accessibility skills as literacy skills is an act of rhetorical resistance in an ableist education system that limits literacy skills, and digital literacy skills, to the skills that temporarily able-bodied people need to communicate with temporarily able-bodied people. It also claims space in curricula and rubrics for teaching and assessing the skills necessary to include people with disabilities in our learning communities and in the digital commons.

Building proficiency in the skills below takes time, and as with other literacy skills, mistakes will be made. That’s OK.

Digital Accessibility Literacy Skill-building Goal: to improve access, agency, and inclusion for people with disabilities and to demonstrate respect through the use of digitally accessible media and communications.

Many academic institutions have services to support educators who want to proactively skill-build. The institutional supports are more likely to use terminology like “digital accessibility training” or services may be named after the compliance framework or legislation the institution is required to follow.

Educators can use the following Digital Accessibility Skills framework to guide inquiry or to collaborate with colleagues and staff to build skills that fundamentally transform how you are able to digitally engage with learners.

1. Writing Skills

• Proficiency with the following WCAG 2 text-based strategies to produce digitally accessible media, e.g., documents, slide decks, websites, social media, video, audio, and images, etc.
  • Write headings and titles to convey meaning and provide navigable structure.
  • When authoring links to websites, make hyperlinked text contextual.
  • Write meaningful alternative text and captions for simple images. Write full image descriptions or image transcripts for complex visuals, infographics, charts or graphs. Understand appropriate use of each. Prepare verbal descriptions of images for oral presentations with digital images.
  • Write/create transcripts, closed captions, described audio or described video for media. Understand and assess the limitations of automatically generated transcripts and captions.
  • Provide clear written and verbal instructions, and generally keep written materials clear and concise. Use ordered lists and bullets appropriately for structure and clarity.
  • Label, author and format tables accessibly, and use them judiciously

2. Editing/Checking and Publishing Skills

• Proficiency using accessibility checkers in publishing software (Office, Adobe, Google Docs, WordPress, LMS, etc.) 
• Proficiency sourcing support, using built in or third-party accessibility checker plug-ins, or otherwise assessing the accessibility of media.
• Proficiency saving/publishing, and sharing media to retain accessibility features.

3. Reading and Curation Skills

• Proficiency identifying digitally accessible media either by reading for the use of the above strategies, or by employing tools to test accessibility.
• Proficiency sourcing accessible versions of files.
• Familiarity with the legislative framework supporting digital accessibility versioning of media, specifically copyright allowances and limitations for producing or acquiring accessible versions of files, and/or familiarity with who or where to go for guidance on version sourcing and version production.

When these digital accessibility literacy skills are addressed along side accessible digital choices, actions, beliefs, and critical pedagogical practices, we have the makings of transformative digital accessibility praxis.

Transformative Joy

My hope is that we will eventually treat these digital accessibility literacies the way we currently treat grammar in a child’s learning journey. We don’t teach kids what verbs are before reading them at least 100 picture books, singing songs, and having satisfying conversations. Children come to understand the grammar rules on some level while being immersed in the joys of communicating.

Kids are able to be assessed on their competencies at the appropriate time, but most pedagogical approaches to grammar appreciate the need for grammar to be experienced in context to be fully understood. For example, someone needs to understand the frustration of being misunderstood or of misunderstanding something because of a grammar error to understand the value of getting grammar right.

I hope that the rules of these digital accessibility literacies will be taught immersively as well. That able-bodied and disabled children are taught meaningful and transformative ways of communicating equitably and agentively with each other. (To that end I’m working on Anti-Oppressive Communications Habits for our next generation, too.)

As we adults learn, we might need to remind ourselves not to get stuck in the rules. To connect with child-like curiosity and look for the joy to find better ways to do things.

Where are you experiencing the transformative joy of communicating with, and teaching, students with disabilities in ways that contribute to their agency, access and inclusion?