Extend the Core Skills

Summary

Once you have learned the core skills, keep learning and practicing even more skills!

The University of Minnesota is committed to the idea that accessibility is everyone's everyday work. 

All you have to do is start small. For example:

Then use the Filter and Sort Options below and review what you learned, or learn even more skills!

Accessibility Skills Pages and Events

Displaying 41 - 50 of 98

Extend the Core Skills

Once you have learned the core skills, keep learning and practicing even more skills!

Face-to-Face Meetings and Events

When you are organizing face-to-face meetings and events, planning ahead can help ensure everyone feels welcome, understands what is presented, and participates in discussions and activities.

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Find Disability Resources

The University of Minnesota offers many resources around accessibility, including accommodations, adaptive technologies and support, consultations, ergonomic devices, training and workshops. 

Folwell Web Theme Accessibility Event on

When the Folwell Web Theme was created, component accessibility was considered every step of the way.

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Form Tags and Styles

Each form element should have a label tag so that adaptive technologies can help the user move through each element of the form. Onfocus indicators are a visual cue of the area of a webpage that is currently targeted by the keyboard or activated by a mouse hover or click. Onfocus indicators included in some browsers are inconsistent, so they should be added via CSS.

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Fundamentals of Disability Accommodations and Inclusive Course Design Event on

Future of Library Text Accessibility: The Promises and Potentials in EPUB Event on

Much of what makes documents accessible to people with disabilities and their assistive technologies boils down to the file format. Every format comes with benefits and drawbacks when it comes to accessibility.

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Global Accessibility Awareness Day Event on

The University of Minnesota gathered in celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 19, 2022.

Headings

Structure your document using paragraph styles (for documents) or heading tags (for web pages). Headings make the structure of your documents accessible to screen readers while improving both scannability and maintainability.

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How-to and Learn More Content

If you used the Accessible U site before June 10, 2020, you may be wondering: Where did the content about how to use specific technologies, links in the Learn More sidebars, and some of the Core Skills for Web Developers go?

  • We incorporated some of the how-to content into knowledge articles on the Information Technology site. We want to make accessibility part of the everyday process of using University-supported tools. 
  • We will curate the Learn More resources to reduce the number and make sure they are up to date.
  • We will evaluate some of the web development content to see if it is still relevant.

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Authors, Designers, and Editors

When you think about accessibility laws and related University policies, you might think they apply only to course and website content.

But at the University of Minnesota, we create thousands of digital content products each day. These can be in a variety of formats, and should all be as accessible to the widest range of audiences as possible

Instructors

The more you make your course accessible, the fewer accommodation requests you may receive.

In addition, more students will be able to better learn from and navigate your course materials and classroom experiences, even if they have different learning styles and abilities.

Leaders and Managers

Leaders can communicate a clear and achievable vision for digital accessibility within the organization.

Managers can drive action by communicating a vision, establishing clear goals and expectations, and providing resources and training.

Check out Promote Digital Accessibility for ideas.

Presenters

You can make your presentations and events you host more inclusive.

For example:

  • Verbally describe your slides while presenting.
  • Include alternative text for images.
  • Provide captions, audio descriptions, and transcripts.

Students

When you produce digital assignments, apply the core skills and your instructors and the students you collaborate with will be better able to understand them, even if they use assistive technologies.

Technology Purchasers

Before a big purchase, the wise shopper gathers requirements, performs research, and reviews potential solutions.

At the University, your digital technology pre-purchase checklist must include an evaluation of the extent to which a product is accessible and how a vendor meets accessibility standards.

Web Developers

From a developer's perspective, the goal is to code a website or web application that, at minimum, meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA standards and follows the POUR guiding principles of accessible technology.