Digital Accessibility: Standards and Requirements

LSU A&M is committed to ensuring that its websites and other digital resources, content, and services, are accessible to people with disabilities. Digital accessibility includes: 

• Publishing online content that works for users with a wide range of abilities and disabilities. 
• Ensuring that online content works with a broad range of assistive technologies. 
• Readily providing equally effective alternative access for users to receive information or services if the primary online method does not work. 

Accessibility Notice (Websites) 

All  webpages must include the following links in the footer of each page: 

“Provide Website Feedback” – www.lsu.edu/feedback 
“Accessibility Statement” – www.lsu.edu/accessibility 

Accessibility Checks 

All digital resources and content developed and published by LSU units should ensure that content is accessible to individuals using a variety of browsing methods. Accessibility checks should be conducted prior to disseminating resources or publishing content. 

Website Accessibility Checker and Reporting Tools 

All the pages on our websites are measured according to: 

• W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA 

• Current WCAG standards can be found here: W3 WCAG 2.1 Standards 

• W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 

• Current ARIA standards can be found here: W3 ARIA Standards 

Siteimprove 

LSU has an enterprise license of the SiteImprove tool, which allows units to identify and remediate inaccessible content more quickly. Units interested in using SiteImprove may contact the the Office of Communications & University Relations at stratcomm@lsu.edu or the Director of Digital Accessibility at [email protected] to obtain access. 

Websites created and/or hosted outside of Omni will be added to the SiteImprove for institutional monitoring of accessibility and compliance. In some cases, the administrators of these sites will be contacted to assist in getting IP addresses white-listed and other technical issues addressed. 

WebAIM 

• WebAIM's WCAG 2 Checklist 
• Principles of Accessibility 
• Testing Web Content for Accessibility 

Webpage Browser-based Accessibility Checkers 

These tools can be installed in browsers to run checks on individual pages.  

• SiteImprove Accessibility Checker Plugin 
• WAVE Evaluation Tool Plugin 

Microsoft Accessibility Checker 

Users of Microsoft products can take advantage of the built-in accessibility checkers in the Office suite of products. For additional information, please reference this article: Improve Accessibility with the Accessibility Checker. 

Ally in Moodle 

The Ally plugin for Moodle automatically checks accessibility of course materials using WCAG 2.1 AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards and provides instant feedback that can be viewed in the course. Please contact the Faculty Technology Center ([email protected]) or visit this GROK article for more details: Ally Accessibility Checker Plugin for Moodle. 

Checking PDF Accessibility 

Adobe Acrobat provides an automatic way to check the accessibility of a PDF file. Refer to the following article for directions: Checking Accessibility of PDFs.