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Policies

ASA-IS operational and web development policies will be posted for reference.

Policies

ASA-IS – Accessibility Standards

ASA-IS supports several websites that in turn host media and electronic documents for use by the UW community. To comply with both UW and WA State accessibility policies, ASA-IS will require those content creators, or SMEs, to be responsible for meeting applicable standards and checking their media and electronic documents prior to publishing on ASA-IS supported sites.

Accessibility Standards – Scope

Accessibility standards apply but are not limited to websites, desktop, mobile, and cloud-based applications, video, and audio content, electronic equipment (kiosks, telephones, digital signs), content and learning management systems, and electronic documents.

For the purposes of ASA-IS, this policy statement refers to websites, applications, video, and audio content, and electronic documents (word) or portable documents (pdf), and the elements within these need to be perceivable, operable, and understandable.

Websites

All web content must meet Washington State and University of Washington accessibility standards. Content authors are responsible for making sure any content they post to an ASA-IS hosted website (e.g. WordPress) meets these standards.

This would include properties such as:

  • Header structure
  • Keyboard navigation
  • Descriptive links
  • Images (alt text, descriptions, or alternative textual content)
  • Audio (closed captioning or transcripts)
  • Video (closed captioning, alternative textual context)
  • Language

ASA-IS can help review and edit your web content to meet these standards. Remember that this may create delays in posting content to the web, so please plan accordingly when submitting updates.

The UW provides numerous resources for creating and checking websites.

Video Standard

Videos should include captions, a transcript, and audio descriptions to ensure all members of an audience can access the content. Content authors must provide video, caption, transcript, and audio description files to embed with videos hosted on a streaming platform. Content authors must provide a captioned video and transcript file for any videos hosted on a non-streaming or local platform. Refer to: Creating Accessible Videos.

Documents

The UW provides numerous resources for creating and checking electronic and pdf documents.

PDF Standard

At a minimum, documents will need to pass an accessibility check, using Adobe Acrobat Pro, before being posted or replacing an existing document. Refer to: Checking PDFs for Accessibility.

This would include pdf document properties such as:

  • Language (Typically English)
  • Document Title (Title of form or report. No dates should be included.)
  • Author (department name)
  • Header Structure
  • Images (alt text, description)
  • Tab Order
  • Form Field values

Word Document Standard

At a minimum, documents will need to pass an accessibility check, using Word’s Accessibility Checker, before being posted or replacing an existing document. Additionally, maintaining accessibility when exporting to PDF. Refer to: Creating Accessible Documents in Microsoft Word.

This would include word document properties such as:

  • Header Structure
  • Language (Typically English)
  • Document Properties (Title, tags, author, subject, company, etc.)
  • Tables (Column headers and data cells)
  • Images (Alt text, description)
  • Form Field values

ASA-IS reserves the right to alter document properties to meet consistency and style guidelines.

Accessibility Policies

Washington State Policy 188 – Accessibility

This policy establishes the expectation for state agencies that people with disabilities have access to and use of information and data and is provided access to the same services and content that is available to persons without disabilities unless providing direct access is not possible due to technical or legal limitations.

Reference(s): Washington State Office of the Chief Information Officer

UW Policy – IT Accessibility

The University of Washington (UW) strives to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the same services and content that are available to people without disabilities, including services and content made available through the use of information technology (IT).

Reference(s):

Legal Risk and Liability

The UW is committed to providing accessible opportunities and environments and to its obligations under the UW Non-Discrimination policy, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Policy 188, among other local, state, and federal laws. Not meeting these accessibility policies and laws puts the University of Washington at risk of legal complaint or action.

Reference(s):