Faculty, staff and students at the University of Michigan are encouraged to expand their digital accessibility knowledge and skills to help create more accessible experiences for all individuals.
This month, the Disability Equity Office within the Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX Office will launch two educational challenges — a three-week Course Accessibility Challenge and a 10-Week Accessibility Challenge — designed to educate the campus community about digital accessibility best practices and how to apply them in content creation.
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The challenges are open to the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses, including Michigan Medicine.
Digital accessibility best practice concepts include the use of heading structures, list formatting, alt text for images, captions on videos, and proper color contrast to ensure access for all individuals. These concepts can be applied across different forms of digital content, such as websites, documents, presentations, PDFs, course materials, videos and social media posts.
“The challenges are designed to help the U-M community understand how simple attention on the front end can have a hugely positive impact for the audience, ensuring content is accessible to the widest audience possible and in compliance with the latest accessibility requirements,” said Phil Deaton, deputy ADA coordinator for digital accessibility and assistant director of the Disability Equity Office.
Each week, challenge participants will receive a newsletter email with information, resources and tips on an accessibility concept along with a short practice activity to test their new skills.
Digital accessibility specialists within the Disability Equity Office will also host weekly live Zoom sessions to further discuss concepts and answer questions from challenge participants.
The Course Accessibility Challenge for faculty begins Jan. 12 and provides tips for enhancing the accessibility of course materials such as Canvas course sites, documents, slide decks and lecture videos.
The 10-Week Accessibility Challenge is open to faculty, staff and students and begins Jan. 26. Topics of the challenge include: assistive technology, alt text, color design and legibility, descriptive hyperlinks, heading hierarchy and how to apply concepts in various content formats including documents, presentations, websites and events.
Individuals who complete either challenge will earn recognition as an U-M Accessibility Ally and receive a badge to add to their email signature.
The challenges are modeled off a previous program developed and implemented by the College of Engineering and LSA and support the university’s broader commitment to digital accessibility and compliance with the latest federal requirements for all large public universities to proactively deliver digitally accessible content and applications by April 24, 2026.
