Intro to Digital Accessibility

This lecture covers an Introduction to Digital Accessibility as part of the Introduction to Technical Writing and Presentation series. Accessibility is the broad subject and term that describes the quality of being easily reached, entered, or used who have a disability. As technical writers we narrow that to digital accessibility, which is specific to information and content.The lecture is divided into three core sections. First we will define digital accessibility for our work by exploring models of disability and imaging a few user personas with what it means for our products. Then we will discuss the legal standards for accessibility. We have national and international standards to follow in our content because ignoring accessibility represents form discrimination. We will also talk about the benefits to companies of following these standards–beyond avoiding legal action. The final section outlines concrete actions that we can take to create more usable content for everyone. We will go over the tools for accessibility checking inside of the products you might be using in this course and potential careers.