What Is Digital Accessibility and Why Does It Matter to Schools?

Digital accessibility is important in all aspects of life, but even more so in the context of education. Providing all students access to the same online content, virtual experiences, and digital devices ensure that everyone, including students with special needs, can fully participate in learning. But it goes beyond that.

Read on to learn about what digital accessibility is and why it’s essential for all academic institutions, or explore ViewSonic’s collection of education solutions for the modern classroom.

Accessibility is a hotly debated topic. In education, digital accessibility specifically refers to equal access to digital products and services used for learning purposes, regardless of whether or not students have disabilities or other impairments. Recent regulations, such as the European Accessibility Act, aim to improve digital accessibility on a larger scale.

In the United States, the concept of accessibility is written into the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), serving as equal opportunities legislation that also covers digital accessibility. Following updates to Title II of the ADA, public educational institutions must now make their websites, apps, and digital resources accessible to individuals with disabilities in compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA.

Accessibility Guidelines and POUR principles

Global guidelines greatly contribute to standardizing the various recommendations to make digital media more inclusive and able to reach a wider audience. Digital accessibility is not only good for consumers of digital media, but also for the creators of content, products, and services.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, include success criteria, like the four “POUR” principles, which outline that digital content should be:

• Perceivable: the content and interface should not be ‘invisible’ to people with sensory impairments.
• Operable: the content should not require actions that cannot be performed by users with impairments.
• Understandable: the content should be able to be understood by all users.
• Robust: the content should be able to be reliably interpreted by user agents such as assistive technology.

Within schools and other academic settings, this means that all digital content should follow all four principles. This is especially important with regard to any digital media that is directly accessible by students, such as online learning materials or media used by teachers during lessons.

Examples of Digital Accessibility Accommodations

Let’s explore some specific examples of digital accessibility in action. This will shed light on what you can do in your school – or any environment, for that matter – to enhance the learning experience and contribute to a more inclusive environment for everyone.

When thinking about digital accessibility, sight impairment is probably the first thing that pops into mind. And indeed, many vision-related issues have already been addressed. For example:

• Screen reading software like myViewBoard now helps with internet browsing through immersive reading features
• Monitors with built-in tools assist users with color blindness
• Image alt text on websites allows screen readers to describe visual content
• Screen magnifiers enlarge parts of the screen for users with limited vision

Yet, there are many other examples of digital accessibility features. Video content will now often display subtitles or closed captions to assist those with hearing impairments, and modern software solutions will often include shortcut keys, keyboard navigation options, and even voice control.

These can all aid users who may have physical impairments that make it difficult to operate a mouse, laptop touchpad, or touchscreen.

Why Is Digital Accessibility Important in Schools?

Digital accessibility is crucial in schools and, in some regions like the EU, it’s even a requirement by law to ensure students with disabilities and impairments are provided with equal access to education technology (EdTech) and learning materials. A focus on digital accessibility can empower these students to enjoy the same learning experiences as their peers.

It’s worth stressing that digital accessibility can be achieved through the optimization of digital media, software, and mobile apps, but also through hardware solutions. For instance, some computer monitors include a color-blind mode, which helps visually impaired users differentiate between colors. Additionally, students with reading difficulties can use headphones to listen to audio descriptions and engage with learning materials without relying on written text.

Below are some examples of areas where digital accessibility contributes to better outcomes for students with special needs.

Student Engagement

One of the most important aspects of inclusive learning is student engagement. True student engagement occurs when students attend classes, take an active interest, participate in the lesson, and are interested in their learning outcomes. If students with impairments or disabilities are unable to perceive, operate, understand, or otherwise utilize digital media, they are less likely to be invested in lessons, which can impact their motivation levels.

Student engagement can be further broken down into:

• Behavioral engagement
• Emotional engagement
• Cognitive engagement

The distinction above indicates that students can be engaged in some ways while disengaged in others. This is where digital accessibility tools come in, such as Speech-to-Text or the Irlen filter feature of myViewBoard that reduces visual processing issues often associated with ADHD. Tools like this assist with student engagement because students can have multilevel engagement with digital media during lessons, in addition to being able to access online learning materials and utilize all the relevant software.

Additionally, there is a social component to student engagement, which is hindered when certain students feel excluded or ‘othered’.

Collaborative Learning

Collaboration within schools and other academic settings is a fundamental part of the modern learning experience and offers many benefits. Collaborative sessions can help engage students and keep lessons varied and interesting, but they also teach valuable life skills, such as teamwork, critical thinking, and communication skills.

Over time, however, collaboration within education has relied upon digital media more and more, and this has created a divide between those with disabilities or even temporary impairments and those without impairments.

In classrooms where digital accessibility is a priority, collaborative learning becomes more inclusive. Students with disabilities can more freely collaborate with their peers, regardless of their own impairments.

Resource Access

Another reason why digital accessibility matters in education is that it helps with the goal of providing equal access to resources. This can be especially significant in situations where students are asked to use online resources to obtain information or carry out activities outside of the classroom.

For educational content creators, there are techniques that can help ensure that everybody has the same access to resources. For instance:

• Content is uploaded in multiple formats, including text, audio, and video.
• Visual content is designed with color blindness in mind.
• Written content is produced with an awareness of issues like dyslexia.

Digital accessibility is an example of universal design and, as the name suggests, universal design benefits everyone. One such example is alt tags, which are short descriptions added to images in a website’s HTML code. While they can be used by screen readers to explain the content of images to the visually impaired, they can also describe images that fail to load to users without visual impairments.

How to Use Technology to Improve Digital Accessibility in Education

EdTech, or educational technology, helps teachers and students alike, and there are many types of EdTech that are relevant to the topic of digital accessibility. Some examples include:

• Desktop computers
• Laptop computers
• Interactive whiteboards
• Projectors
• Tablets
• Smartphones

Interactive whiteboards are especially useful for accommodating different learning styles, because they allow teachers to combine text, images, and multimedia to support different learning needs and assistive technologies. Meanwhile, students can engage with the content directly on screen or through alternative input methods.

Digital Literacy

One of the most significant concepts related to digital accessibility is the idea of digital literacy. This can be described or defined as the ability of ICT-related technology to find, share, create, and communicate information. Essentially, it can be thought of as the development of skills that are required to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

The development of these skills and the achievement of digital literacy are necessary for students throughout their time in school and higher education. Moreover, digital literacy is also in high demand within the workforce, and students who do not acquire the necessary skills may have limited future employment opportunities.

Digital literacy can be acquired through a combination of time spent using digital technology in school and outside of school. However, different households will have different levels of exposure to technology based on a variety of factors, including household income. Therefore, there is a strong argument to suggest that schools should serve as an equalizer in this regard, but for that to be possible, digital accessibility needs to be guaranteed for everybody.

How ViewSonic Supports Digital Accessibility

Here at ViewSonic, we design our hardware and software to support inclusivity in education, for students and educators alike. From high-contrast color combinations to compatibility with assistive technologies, our EdTech is built to be accessible for users of all abilities.

Eight of our product lines across interactive displays, commercial displays, monitors, and software currently conform with WCAG A and AA standards. For institutions, this means alignment with regulatory requirements like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the European Accessibility Act, in addition to more effective learning environments for all users.

Final Thoughts

Understanding digital accessibility is extremely important for everyone, especially for educators. As new technologies and devices emerge and evolve every day, digital accessibility strategies aim to ensure that all students have access to digital media, software, apps, and technologies, and can perceive, understand, and operate it effectively, regardless of any impairments or disabilities.

If you found this read insightful, you might also want to learn about equality vs equity in accessible education or explore inclusive learning solutions by ViewSonic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below you’ll find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about digital accessibility.