Global Accessibility Awareness Day
May 15 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and we want to acknowledge and get everyone to start talking, thinking, and learning about digital access and inclusion.
Digital Accessibility refers to the ability of people with disabilities/impairments to independently consume and/or interact with digital content.
The common disabilities/impairments are:
- Visual—People who are blind need alternative text descriptions for meaningful images and use the keyboard and not a mouse to interact with interactive elements.
- Hearing—People who are deaf or hard of hearing will need captioning for video presentations and visual indicators in place of audio cues.
- Motor—People with motor impairments may need alternative keyboards, eye control or some other adaptive hardware to help them type and navigate on their devices.
At the University of Adelaide, the Disability Support service tailors accessibility solutions to meet students’ diverse needs. For example, a vision-impaired student may require assistive technologies with text-to-speech and magnifier features to read digital course materials. In collaboration with teaching staff, we ensure documents are compatible with these tools and provide alternatives such as braille or audio formats when needed. Similarly, a hearing-impaired student may rely on Auslan interpreters or captioning services to fully engage in lectures and discussions. When live interpreters are unavailable, we arrange video remote interpreting (VRI), troubleshooting connectivity issues to ensure seamless communication.
By working closely with students and staff, we remove barriers to accessibility—whether digital, physical, or communication-related—to ensure students have what they need to succeed in their studies.
You can participate by making your social media posts more inclusive by adding image or video descriptions and captions.
Find out more on the Disability Support website.
