Web and digital accessibility
Web and digital accessibility means designing and developing websites, applications, documents, email, social media content, and all other digital content so that all people, including individuals with disabilities, can access, understand, navigate, and interact with it effectively.
Compliance Requirements
Effective May 11, 2026, because of a Department of Health and Human Services mandate, Ball State University must adopt Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for its web/digital content. Additional ruling by the Department of Justice further enforces this requirement in Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which goes into effect on April 24, 2027. WCAG is organized around four principles— Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR) — which define what it means for digital content to be accessible:
- Perceivable — Information must be presentable in ways users can perceive, whether visually, audibly, or through assistive technology. This includes alt text for images, captions for video, and sufficient color contrast.
- Operable — Users must be able to navigate and interact with all content and controls, including by keyboard alone, without encountering traps, time limits, or flashing content that could cause seizures.
- Understandable — Content must be readable, predictable, and designed to help users avoid and correct mistakes.
- Robust — Content must be compatible with current and evolving assistive technologies, including screen readers.
When any of these principles is not met, people with disabilities are prevented from accessing university services, programs, and information that are readily available to others.
What This Covers
The Title II regulations apply broadly to digital content Ball State provides or makes available, whether directly or through third-party vendors and platforms. This includes:
- University websites and web applications (public-facing and behind a login)
- Social media posts on all university-branded accounts
- PDF documents, Word files, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations posted online or distributed digitally
- Mass and broadcast email communications
- Video and multimedia content, including but not limited to YouTube embeds
- Mobile applications
- Third-party platforms and tools provided through contractual or licensing arrangements (payment portals, scheduling systems, learning management systems, event registration tools, etc.)
Accessibility Compliance Guides
The university has developed seven guides to help content publishers across campus understand accessibility requirements and meet them. Each guide provides practical, step-by-step instructions for a specific content type.
Color contrast is not an abstract design principle. It is the difference between someone being able to read your content and not being able to read it. When text and its background do not have enough contrast, the words become difficult or impossible to perceive for people with low vision, color blindness, or age-related vision changes. This affects a far larger population than most designers realize.
Guidelines for color use & contrast
This guide applies to broadcast and mass emails sent on behalf of Ball State University to audiences where you do not know the full makeup of your recipients. This includes department newsletters, event announcements, enrollment communications, alumni outreach, campus-wide notifications, and any other email sent to a distribution list, listserv, or audience segment.
This guide does not apply to individual, one-to-one emails between colleagues or with a specific known recipient. However, the principles here will improve any email you sen
Guidelines for email accessibilityAlternative text (alt text) is a written description attached to an image that conveys the same information the image conveys visually. It is not visible on screen under normal circumstances. It exists in the code behind the image—on a web page, in a social media post’s metadata, or in a PDF’s tag structure—and is read aloud by assistive technology.
Guidelines for web and digital alt text
This guide covers what you need to do when uploading video to YouTube and when embedding video on bsu.edu pages.
This guide is for two audiences: (1) anyone who manages a Ball State YouTube channel, and (2) anyone who embeds video on a bsu.edu web page. If you do both, the entire guide applies to you.
Guidelines for video/podcast uploadsThis guide covers how to create accessible Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. These are the three file types the ADA Title II rule classifies as “conventional electronic documents” and they are among the most commonly posted files on bsu.edu.
Guidelines for document accessibilityThis guide applies to every person who posts content on behalf of Ball State University on Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, or YouTube. Content posted after May 11, 2026, must comply. Content posted before that date is grandfathered under the preexisting social media posts exception.
Guidelines for Social Media AccessibilityThis guide covers how to determine whether a PDF is accessible, what the key elements of an accessible PDF are, and how to fix common accessibility problems using Adobe Acrobat Pro, which is available to all Ball State employees.
Guidelines for PDF documents What You Can Do
Every person who creates or publishes digital content on behalf of Ball State has a role in ensuring University-side compliance. Start with the guide that matches your work:
Faculty, Staff, and Student Resources
Faculty and staff with questions about how to make course content, departmental documents, or other digital materials accessible can use the guides above and the resources below. Additional information regarding accessibility tools and functionality within platforms like Canvas will be readily provided by Information Technology and Academic Affairs.
Students who need accommodations should contact Disability Services.
Faculty can also find resources in the Teaching Innovation Canvas community.
Additional Relevant Tools and External Resources