Columbian College’s Office of Communications & Marketing endeavors to ensure CCAS department and program websites are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. This work supports the University’s digital accessibility commitment to conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
What Is Digital Accessibility?
WCAG 2.1 identifies four principles of digital accessibility. According to the guidelines, web content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust in order to be considered accessible.
- Perceivable: users must be able to perceive the information being presented. It can’t be invisible to all of their senses.
- Operable: users must be able to operate the interface. The interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform.
- Understandable: users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface.
- Robust: users must be able to access the content as technologies advance. As technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible.
Making PDFs Accessible
Making PDFs accessible is an important part of GW’s digital accessibility requirements. Fortunately, many accessibility issues related to PDFs can be remediated using accessibility tools in Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office. Review GW’s PDF Accessibility Overview to learn about how you can use these tools to fix common accessibility errors in your own PDFs.
Accessibility Webinars
Basic Accessibility Steps to Perform on Every Webpage
Digital Accessibility Overview Training
Additional Training & Resources
In addition to the resources provided by our team, GW’s Office of Online Strategy recommends several in-house and third-party training opportunities that help you improve your site accessibilty.
Questions? Email onlinestrategy@gwu.edu or attend Virtual Office Hours.
