ITS Enhances Digital Accessibility on FSU Websites

Derek Carraway is a member of the ITS Integrated Communications team. In his role as IT Support Specialist, Derek keeps the ITS website up to date, aids in incident communications for service outages and assists with internal mass emails. Recently, he began working on a new initiative to improve Digital Accessibility across FSU’s digital platforms.  

Research and planning for this initiative commenced around four years ago and Derek began closely working on the ongoing initiative nearly a year and a half ago.  As he started conducting research on digital accessibility, he saw that other universities were facing legal issues for the lack of accessibility on their websites and aimed to ensure FSU didn’t face these same legalities.  

As part of this initiative, Derek is working to make websites more accessible for the FSU community. These initiatives include ensuring files are accessible before posting and that website features are compatible for anyone who relies on assistive technology. Derek also adds alternative and descriptive text to images and resizes pages and text to improve readability, making their content accessible to all users.  

In addition to fixing accessibility issues, he has been attempting to draft new documentation that would set a standard for digital accessibility across FSU’s campus and digital platforms. This would serve as a guide so all departments can ensure their websites and other technologies are accessible.  

In addition to the new documentation, FSU ITS recently launched a new webpage dedicated to digital accessibility resources. This webpage includes information about digital accessibility and resources for students, faculty and staff to make their technology and course material at the university more accessible. Derek is developing an official accessibility policy for the university that would ensure that FSU’s digital spaces are accessible for everyone. This policy and new digital accessibility initiative will make it easier for people to access any information they needed across FSU’s digital spaces and ensure FSU is in compliance with all applicable digital accessibility laws.  

 

I know people and have friends that rely on digital accessibility. I feel strongly that this is an important issue, and I know it affects a lot of people who have disabilities too. 

Recently, Derek has been making strides to implement digital accessibility initiatives here in ITS and meeting with representatives in other departments across FSU’s campus.  Derek hopes to continue to improve digital accessibility across FSU’s campus and his continued efforts have already made FSU’s digital spaces more accessible and inclusive for everyone.