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You are here: Home » Accessibility and Accommodation in the Current Political/Legal Environment, Artificial Intelligence, Campus & System-wide initiatives, Captioning/Transcription, Faculty Development & Support, Procurement, Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access » University of Washington Digital Accessibility Initiative: Strategies, Successes, and Lessons Learned

University of Washington Digital Accessibility Initiative: Strategies, Successes, and Lessons Learned

Scheduled at 9:00am in Colorado GH on Tuesday, November 17.

#43184

Speaker(s)

  • Terrill Thompson, Director, Accessibility Consulting & Engagement, University of Washington
  • Beth Somerfield, Deputy ADA Coordinator for Digital Accessibility, University of Washington
  • Alaina Foust, Lead Digital Accessibility Consultant, University of Washington
  • Erik Steen, Digital Accessibility Specialist, University of Washington
  • Gaby de Jongh, Manager, Access Technology Center, University of Washington

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 5-6-hr
  • Format: Interactive/Discussion
  • Expertise Level: All Levels
  • Type of session: Pre-conference

Summary

This session, built from experiences at the University of Washington, will engage participants in a discussion about strategies for tackling big challenges posed by inaccessible digital technology in higher education. Focus areas will include web accessibility, PDF accessibility, video captioning, accessibility of course content, building accessibility into procurement procedures, and the University-wide collaboration required to build change.

Abstract

The University of Washington established an ADA Digital Accessibility Task Force in 2024, charged with approving and providing high-level oversight to ensure compliance with the new ADA regulations. Task Force work revealed that meeting ADA compliance, and overcoming our decentralized structure to build a sustainable model for ensuring digital accessibility, requires a University-wide, collaborative effort with robust governance and support. This led to the launching of the ADA Digital Accessibility Initiative (DAI), a partnership between Compliance Services, the Provost’s Office, UW Medicine, and UWIT to lead the UW’s work to comply with Department of Justice regulations and set up the mechanisms needed to ensure ongoing accessible content. The DAI was originally organized into five action teams, with representation from a broad cross-section of the university, each focused on a particular domain: Web content and mobile apps, procurement, academic course content, UW Medicine, and Innovation and Research. In its second year, the DAI was reorganized into three teams: Remediation, Sustainability, and Change Management. The work of the DAI has resulted in a new digital accessibility policy, a wide variety of formal procedures, and new tools and services all geared toward operationalizing digital accessibility and building it into the culture of the university. In this session, we will share how we’ve approached the myriad challenges posed by inaccessible digital technology in higher education, including our successes as well as hurdles. We will also use this framework to engage participants in discussion. Our overall intent is to spend a highly focused day learning from and supporting each other.

Keypoints

  1. Building a university-wide initiative requires engagement from a community of people across the institution.
  2. Institution-wide accessibility requires policy, procedures, tools, services, training, and a comm strategy.
  3. Accessibility scores help measure progress but can have negative side-effects that must be managed carefully.

Disability Areas

All Areas

Topic Areas

Accessibility and Accommodation in the Current Political/Legal Environment, Artificial Intelligence, Campus & System-wide initiatives, Captioning/Transcription, Faculty Development & Support, Procurement, Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access

Speaker Bio(s)

Terrill Thompson

Terrill Thompson is manager of the IT Accessibility Team at the University of Washington.

Beth Somerfield

Beth is the Deputy ADA Coordinator for Digital Accessibility in UW's Civil Rights Compliance Office (CRC). She joined UW in 2024 to support the CRCs digital accessibility work and coordinate new digital accessibility initiatives. Prior to working at UW, she worked as a Human Centered Design and Digital Accessibility consultant, and in local government in user experience, accessibility, web development, and digital content roles.

Alaina Foust

Alaina Foust is the Lead Digital Accessibility Consultant with UWIT Accessible Technology Services at the University of Washington. She offers digital accessibility consultation and training to a wide variety of university colleagues. She works with students assistants who are trained on digital accessibility to conduct accessibility reviews of university websites. Before joining the team at UW, she worked at WebAIM as a Web Accessibility Evaluator.

Erik Steen

Erik Steen is Digital Accessibility Specialist with UWIT Accessible Technology Services at the University of Washington (UW). His work primarily focuses on evaluation of vendor products, including Accessibility Conformance Reports, as part of the UW’s Digital Product Accessibility Review procedure.

Gaby de Jongh

Gaby de Jongh is an IT Accessibility Specialist with UWIT Accessible Technology Services at the University of Washington. Her responsibilities include collaborating with the university community to develop accessible digital documents. She provides consultations, delivers training on accessible content creation techniques, and offers technical support.