Accessibility myths and misconceptions

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

May 21, 2019 Accessibility, Advice

Web accessibility has always been a requirement for UMaine websites, and Digital Communications has been increasing efforts to improve the accessibility of web content on umaine.edu. The term “accessibility” refers to our efforts to remove barriers that prevent access to websites by people who have a disability. This month, we acknowledge some myths and misconceptions around this topic.

My class/program isn’t a good fit for someone with disabilities, so why worry about accessibility?

Honestly, it’s hubris for us to decide pre-emptively that someone isn’t capable of the career an education prepares them for. There are constant innovations occurring that are making accommodations for disabilities that we thought were not feasible just a decade ago.

Additionally, the number of potential students who have a disability is larger than you may think. According to a 2012 study by the U.S. Census bureau, nearly 1 in 5 people have a disability in the U.S. (about 56.7 million people). These disabilities range from profound difficulty seeing and hearing, to situational disabilities where the text may not be their primary language. Traits such as color blindness or vision problems addressed by eyeglasses mean color contrast or glare on a screen can interfere with their learning. Some disabilities are temporary, and some (motor skills) affect the use of a mouse or touchscreen but their keyboard use is strong.

I only add content to the website Digital Communications set up for me, accessibility is their issue not mine.

It is true that our team here in Digital Communications is responsible for the website design you use (theme in WordPress terms), and we are routinely finding minor improvements we can make to enhance accessibility. By making use of the tools we provide, there are a number of accessibility issues you do not need to address (the navigation menus at the very top, the way site search operates, and the way lists of articles and events behave, for example).

At the same time, our websites would be useless without the content you provide between the top and bottom of the page— and the content you create in that space will benefit from a focus on accessibility.

All of the topics we have covered regarding web accessibility in previous newsletters have focused on the work you can do to make your content accessible, and are available on our User Guide.

It takes too much time and effort to make my content accessible.
We hope that over the last academic year, our monthly newsletter has given you helpful tips on web accessibility so that you can keep these issues in mind as you first create content. It is truly daunting to look at a website that has hundreds of images that lack alt text, but the truth is that a situation like that took years to get to such a state.

Addressing accessibility as you work with your content can become second nature, and does not need to be an onerous task you take on every couple of years. Think about accessibility when you first plan to build a new web page, and you will save yourself time and effort.