This past April, the Digital Accessibility Advisory Team (DAAT) shared an update on their work during April’s All Staff Forum (available for viewing online). The group has members from departments across LSA to improve digital accessibility in the college. The co-chairs are Maria Laitan, a Senior User Experience Specialist from LSA Technology Services and Jessica McCuaig, a Disability Navigator from LSA DEI. Other members from LSA Technology Services include Emily Ravenwood, Karl Aldag, and Dave Chmura. McCuaig, Laitan, and Ravenwood gave a presentation during the All Staff Forum with an overview of the group’s mission and projects.
DAAT defines digital accessibility as designing and creating digital content so it is usable by everyone regardless of how they interact with it. Email, Word, Google Docs, Zoom events, and website content are examples of digital content. As part of the values of LSA, creating digital resources that are accessible improves the user experience for everyone.
Not only is digital accessibility important for the inclusion and wellbeing of everybody, it is required on campus. It is mandated under federal laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. U-M’s commitment to digital accessibility is also now outlined in Standard Practice Guide (SPG) 601.20: Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility. The SPG was written “to enable full and equitable participation for individuals with disabilities,” and to that end “the University of Michigan is committed to creating and maintaining electronic and information technology that strives to be comprehensively accessible.”
DAAT was created to address LSA’s strategy for improving the accessibility of our digital assets: IT systems, electronic materials, online events, and more. The sponsors for the LSA digital accessibility strategy are Karla Renee Williams, Chief People Officer, and Cathy Curley, Chief Information Officer. They approached Laitan and McCuaig about co-leading the initiative. Both have backgrounds in different aspects of digital accessibility and were enthusiastic to lead this work. They decided to form DAAT to ensure broad representation from across LSA in areas and roles where key transformations will need to occur. McCuaig says the group started with these guiding questions: “Where are we now? Where do we need to be? How do we get there?”
To that end, DAAT has three core objectives:
Understand the current state of digital accessibility in LSA.
Benchmark against other large liberal arts colleges.
Recommend a multi-year strategy to improve digital accessibility across the college and align LSA with the Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility SPG.
One way the group is going to reach these objectives is by conducting a brief staff survey to receive input on how to improve LSA’s strategy for accessibility, influence U-M’s resource allocation, and track progress over time. McCuaig emphasized the need to hear from staff stating, “it will ultimately be the employees who need to move our accessibility goals forward.” We are all responsible for digital accessibility, not only those of us who send emails, but also web content creators and editors, web and application developers, and supervisors or managers who oversee employee training. The survey is going to collect data on preferred training formats, challenges to implementing digital accessibility, and the work areas digital accessibility applies to. Employees will be able to respond to what is relevant to them and their input will help create a strategy that is realistic and approachable for the LSA community. McCuaig is optimistic about the future: “We’re going to learn a little bit at a time and we’re all going to get there together.”
DAAT is intentionally collaborating closely with central offices as they generate recommendations. “We are working with ITS and other units across campus. We want to avoid reinventing the wheel,” says Laitan.
DAAT will not be the be all, end all of digital accessibility work in LSA. “This is just the start of an initiative that will be carried into the future,” says McCuaig, “Additional mechanisms and conversations will be had to make sure the college continues evolving because digital accessibility is always evolving.”
