Theta Cares About Digital Accessibility

Even though Global Accessibility Awareness Day was recognized in May (May 20, to be exact), Kappa Alpha Theta keeps online accessibility needs in mind for our members and website visitors year-round.

Considering that one in four Americans live with a disability (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), it should be expected that many of our members have one and certainly know of others who do as well.

It’s important to explain what ”disability” means. The CDC describes it as any issue(s) “that affect a person’s vision, movement, thinking, remembering, learning, communicating, hearing, mental health, and social relationships.” And, it’s important to remember those who have a temporary, not necessarily permanent, disability.

Kappa Alpha Theta has taken great strides to ensure that online communication is accessible to its members.

• The Theta website is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) per WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.0 A & AA so screen readers and e-readers (along with the traditional desktop version) can successfully use the site.
• The online version of The Kappa Alpha Theta Magazine uses DAISY, the Digital Accessible Information System. DAISY is the emerging world standard for digital talking books for people who are blind or have a print disability.
• Theta’s main media player, Vimeo, is keyboard-operatable and accessible, and YouTube auto-generates captions for our videos on that platform. We are working on providing captioning for all of our videos going forward.
• Theta is currently updating all online webinars to include captions.

How has your experience been when using Theta’s online tools? Are we missing anything you might need? We want to know! We would love your feedback on how we are doing and/or how we can improve. And, we’d also love to know if you’ve benefited from Theta’s accessibility efforts.