As faculty members at UCI, you all know how important it is to provide an inclusive learning environment for your students. But did you know that accessibility extends beyond the physical classroom and also includes digital products like websites and apps? By designing these products to be accessible, we ensure that everyone, including people with disabilities, can access and use digital information and services just like everyone else. This is crucial because when websites and apps aren’t accessible, it can limit opportunities for education, employment, and social interaction for people with disabilities. At UCI, we are committed to making our digital products accessible to everyone, and it’s our responsibility as website owners to ensure that we do so. To learn more about UCI’s Accessibility policy and guidelines, visit the Accessibility website.
Plugins
UCI Sites has some plugins available to help you make your WordPress site more accessible. While these won’t guarantee your website will be accessible, they can help you achieve your accessibility goals. Find these plugins in the Plugins > All Plugins area of your dashboard. You will need to be an administrator on a site to activate these.
Accessibility (WP Accessibility)
The WP Accessibility plugin helps with a variety of common accessibility problems in WordPress themes. It adds a number of helpful accessibility features that can be enabled or disabled based on your theme’s needs.
Accessible Content
Check your pages and posts for potential accessibility issues and get help with ensuring your content is accessible. This tool also makes it easy to check your media uploads to make sure you are using Alternative (ALT) text. You will see a new “Alt Text” menu option in the Media section.
Divi Accessibility
If you are using the Divi theme or Divi plugin, make sure to activate Divi Accessibility. This plugin improves Divi accessibility in accordance with WCAG 2.0 guidelines.
SiteImprove to Check Your Site
UCI has licensed the SiteImprove tool to help you check for accessibility issues on your site. SiteImprove is a web-based tool that helps website owners improve their websites to make them easier to use for everyone, including people with disabilities. It does this by checking your website for issues that might make it difficult for people with disabilities to use, like small text, missing descriptions of pictures, or buttons that are hard to click on. If it finds any issues, SiteImprove gives you advice on how to fix them, so your website becomes more inclusive and user-friendly. With SiteImprove, you can make sure your website is accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities.