Guide: Digital Accessibility Fundamentals

Why this matters for our community

Every day, students, faculty, staff, and community members with disabilities navigate digital barriers that prevent them from fully participating in university life. These new requirements support our commitment to inclusion and ensure all students, faculty, and staff can fully participate in university life. When we make digital content accessible, we create better experiences for everyone in our community.

Core concepts

Digital accessibility is often organized into four main principles–Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust–which spell the acronym POUR:

• Perceivable: present information in ways that people can recognize and use, no matter what senses they rely on or how they consume content. Some people have low vision, hearing loss, or use assistive technology like screen readers.
• Operable: make information and controls easy to navigate and use, no matter how someone interacts with it. For example people who do not use a mouse may use their voice, or press the ‘Tab’ key to move the keyboard’s focus to interactive controls.
• Understandable: make it easy for people to understand information and how to complete tasks, across differences in cognitive needs.
• Robust: make content and websites that work with different web browsers, assistive technologies, operating systems, and versions

Together, these principles describe a flexible approach to accessible design that is relevant across digital contexts. Further explanations of the principles can be found in this helpful Accessibility Guidelines Summary.