Digital accessibility has become a key priority for colleges and universities in recent years. But unfortunately, many of these efforts are still falling short. Strategic efforts like digital accessibility committees notwithstanding, a recent report found that 97% of higher ed websites are failing accessibility standards.
The takeaway is clear: higher ed digital accessibility has a long way to go. Even the most well-intentioned accessibility efforts are falling short, often due to overlooked details that leaders might not even consider. Even the most proactive digital accessibility committees can miss critical areas that impact compliance, inclusivity, and student satisfaction.
Fortunately, these oversights are common enough to be grouped into easy-to-follow categories. Consider this blog a guideline for your digital accessibility committees to follow as you work toward compliance and a positive experience for all students.
The Complexity of Digital Accessibility
Achieving higher ed digital accessibility is not a set-and-forget effort. This is a complex process, one that requires constant and consistent attention across all of your digital platforms.
Even for institutions primarily relying on in-person learning, digital environments have become a key part of the learning experience. Prospective students learn about your school on your website and log into a portal to submit supplemental application materials. Current students use an online learning environment to submit classwork. They also log into the student portal to pay their bills and check their grades. Even alumni leverage digital properties to stay in touch with your institution, register for events, and donate funds.
Each of these digital environments is interconnected. Achieving accessibility for just some of them, therefore, won’t be enough. If you don’t consider how they all work together, you might miss critical components. Those gaps will ultimately harm your digital accessibility efforts.
5 Common Areas Higher Ed Digital Accessibility Committees Overlook
The first crucial step for all digital accessibility committees should be auditing all digital properties. Most committees begin with obvious pieces, like your institution’s website or LMS. As a result, they might overlook these five areas for which higher ed digital accessibility is just as important.
1. Dynamic Content Updates
Even regular accessibility reviews tend to miss content that gets updated between those reviews. As a result, institutions can spend a significant amount of time out of compliance, incurring potentially significant risks until the next review takes place.
For example, high-traffic web pages or event calendars can escape the grasp of digital accessibility committees. But those hard-to-remember sign-up forms for open houses, homecoming, and other major events can receive thousands of views and clicks. Ensuring that this type of content is part of the digital accessibility committee’s consideration becomes vital.
2. Third-Party Plugins and Tools
Many institutions assume, perhaps understandably, that vendors with whom they work will ensure compliance. But all too often, these tools and plugins are not accessible. They create potentially significant risks for which the institution will ultimately be responsible.
These tools and plugins tend to permeate the school and all of its audiences. From LMS systems to payment processors, institutions have to ensure that they are in compliance—just as they would with their own digital platforms and systems.
3. Mobile Accessibility
College administrators and digital accessibility committees tend to focus on desktop versions of the digital platforms they monitor. They tend to overlook the fact that the majority of college students use mobile devices on an everyday basis. In fact, one recent study found that smartphones are the top secondary device for students, with 56% of college students using them for educational purposes.
A focus on desktop solutions, then, can leave mobile apps and resources non-compliant. Any comprehensive focus on digital accessibility necessarily has to include mobile accessibility concerns, even—and especially—when expanding the scope in this fashion significantly increases complexity.
4. Campus Maps and Virtual Tours
Recruitment of new student classes moves further into the digital realm. So, tools like interactive campus maps and virtual tours have become increasingly important. A recent Concept3D study found that 82% of prospective students used virtual campus tours to evaluate potential colleges. 57% were deterred from future research if an institution they were considering did not have a virtual tour.
Tools like interactive maps and tours are easy for digital accessibility committees to overlook because they’re hosted externally and tend to be designed for students not yet at the institution. And yet, they’re an increasingly important part of the higher ed tech stack, making them a central consideration for any accessibility audit.
5. Student Feedback Loops
Finally, accessibility committees tend to focus on objective checklists for each digital property. As a result, they may simply forget to regularly gather individual, subjective input from students with disabilities about their digital experiences.
Accessibility audits, it turns out, can only take you so far. Sustainably improving accessibility in higher education needs to also include direct student feedback. It’s the only way committees can truly understand the positive or negative experiences students may have in a real-life environment. This leads to improvements that work beyond compliance and toward the purpose that this compliance is designed to achieve.
The Consequences of Digital Accessibility Oversights
Digital accessibility committees are almost always well-intended. But if they miss oversights like the above, they can expose the institution to potentially significant legal jeopardy. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice don’t judge based on intent; only compliance and potential violations are considerations from their perspective.
Digital accessibility lawsuits have been on the rise for years, and 2024 has been no exception. By the end of June, more than 4,000 organizations across industries had received lawsuits related to the topic, a 5% rise from the previous year. Higher education has not been exempt; among other cases, a California community college was ordered to pay $240,000 last year to two blind students who couldn’t access key software.
Legal exposure, though, is not the only potential consequence of digital accessibility oversights. A lack of accessibility decreases student satisfaction and trust, particularly (but not only) among students with disabilities. Even in the California case, the two students reported multiple attempts at making software more accessible before filing the lawsuit. These oversights thus become a missed opportunity to foster a more inclusive campus culture in which everyone feels welcome and ready to succeed.
How to Avoid Potential Digital Accessibility Pitfalls
Fortunately, no accessibility oversights are impossible to conquer. With or without digital accessibility committees in place, institutions can follow these actionable strategies to ensure greater success in achieving compliance and building a culture of belonging.
1. Develop a Comprehensive Accessibility Checklist
The first step includes cataloging all of your digital assets. From websites to campus apps, create a comprehensive list of your platforms and tools that need to be considered for accessibility purposes. Having this checklist in place and easily accessible ensures that none of them are overlooked during your audits.
2. Audit Third-Party Tools
As you consider your external vendors, it helps to establish a vetting process that ensures they meet digital accessibility (WCAG) standards. This guide by Harvard University can help you outline exactly what questions to ask each time you’re considering a third-party tool, plugin, or platform.
3. Implement Ongoing Reviews
Work with your committee to schedule regular accessibility audits of all of your platforms. Be sure to include the steps needed for new content creation to ensure you don’t fall out of compliance between audits. It also helps to set up training sessions with all content creators to keep teams beyond your committee up to date.
4. Engage Your Students
Don’t forget about your students. Instead, use surveys, focus groups, or accessibility ambassadors to gather continuous feedback from your entire student body. Then, use their experiences and answers to ensure that your digital presence is not only compliant but also contributes to a positive college experience.
5. Leverage Expert Solutions
Finally, don’t be afraid to partner with others to ensure higher ed digital accessibility. Companies like Concept3D that prioritize accessibility in their products can make great partners to build greater confidence that your institution’s entire digital presence remains in compliance.
The Concept3D Advantage
Your interactive maps, virtual tours, and event calendars are common culprits for accessibility concerns. By partnering with Concept3D, you can rest easy. That’s because WCAG 2.1 AA compliance is among the core features of all three of our platforms, reflecting a commitment to digital accessibility that is unmatched in the industry.
Features like alt text, scalable text, semantic HTML, and keyboard navigation add deeper accessibility across our tools. Meanwhile, regular updates and support ensure that your institution will always stay ahead of evolving standards. In fact, we’re already working to comply with the new WCAG 2.2 standards, released just recently to comply with the ever-changing digital environment we live in today.
No digital accessibility committee is perfect. But by identifying and addressing common gaps in their evaluation efforts, institutions across higher education can significantly improve their accessibility efforts.
Don’t let the small things you overlook today become tomorrow’s liability. Only proactive work can ensure that you remain in compliance and turn your digital experience into one that all students can enjoy.
Ready to learn more about how third-party solutions can help? Schedule a consultation with Concept3D today to learn about our platforms’ digital accessibility efforts.