Digital Accessibility Toolkit

City of Evanston staff are encouraged to use these tools and resources when addressing digital accessibility in their work. As a reminder, all staff are responsible for ensuring their digital content is in compliance with ADA Title II, per the City's Digital Accessibility Policy.

Looking for more support? Academic institutions and government entities from Colorado tend to have exemplary digital accessibility resources due to strong external and state-level requirements. These are great places to reference when you need additional help.  

Table of Contents:

1. About the Federal Ruling
2. Digital Accessibility Basics
   • Introduction to Digital Accessibility 
   • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
3. Guidance for Creating Accessible Content
   • General Accessible Content Creation
   • Documents + PDFs
   • Maps
   • Graphs and Data Visualizations
   • Multimedia 
   • Social Media
   • Accessible Language
   • For Website Editors 
4. Free Tools for Accessibility Testing
5. Additional Resources

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1. About the Federal Ruling

• Full Federal Ruling

  • Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability: Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Governments | full ruling from the Federal Register
    • This document details the DOJ's official ruling that requires state and local governments to ensure digital content is accessible to individuals with disabilities, with updated guidelines for web and mobile accessibility

• Federal Ruling Overviews

  • Fact Sheet: New Rule on the Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps Provided by State and Local Governments | ADA.gov
    • This page explains the DOJ's March 2024 rule that reinforces the ADA's requirements for accessibility of digital content, focusing on websites and mobile apps maintained by state and local governments. 
  • Small Entity Compliance Guide  | ADA.gov
    • This compliance guide helps small government entities understand how to ensure their websites and mobile apps meet ADA accessibility standards and how to implement necessary changes for compliance.

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2. Digital Accessibility Basics

Introduction to Digital Accessibility 

• ADA Compliance and Digital Accessibility 101 (Granicus Webinar)
• How People with Disabilities Use the Web

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • Detailed guidelines for accessibility, including tips on text, images, multimedia, and navigation.
• WCAG in Plain English (AAArdvark)
  • A beginner-friendly guide to understanding WCAG requirements. 

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3. Guidance for Creating Accessible Content

General Accessible Content Creation 

• Accessible Design Checklist (interactive list)
• Accessible Heading Structure
• Email Accessibility
• Accessibility Top 10 Checklist for Content Creators (UChicago)
• Canva: 
  • Using Canva's Design Accessibility Tool
• Alt Text:
  • Writing Helpful Alt Text to Describe Images
  • A Guide to Alt Text Across Popular Tools

Documents + PDFs

Trainings:

• 3/4/26 Accessible PDF Training w/ Knowbility
  • ** MS Word Accessibility Checklist **
  • Slides: Creating Accessible PDFs from Word
  • Video Recording: Creating Accessible PDFs

General

• Accessible Documents Toolkit (State of Colorado)
  • Step-by-step guidance for creating accessible documents, including PDFs from Word or Google Docs.
• 5 Steps to Send an Accessible Docusign Envelope

Microsoft

• Microsoft Accessibility Video Training / Create accessible Word documents
  • Series of short videos
• Microsoft: Make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities
  • Microsoft Word’s basic overall accessibility reference.
• University of Washington: Creating Accessible Documents in Microsoft Word
  • Really basic instructions for exporting to PDF.
• Microsoft: Add alternative text to a shape, picture, chart, SmartArt graphic, or other object in Word
  • Instructions for adding alt text in Word.

Google

• Google: Make your document or presentation more accessible
  • Accessibility using Google Docs.
• Creating Accessible Google Docs

PDFs

• Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Guide

Maps

• Map Accessibility (Minnesota IT Services)
• Colorado GIS Mapping Accessibility Guidelines (State of Colorado)

Graphs and Data Visualizations

• Accessible data visualizations
• Data Visualizations for Everybody: A Lesson on Accessibility
• Implement WCAG Rules in Your Infographics

Multimedia

Social Media

• Create Accessible Social Media (section508.gov)
  • Provides platform-specific best practices for accessibility compliance. 
• Accessible Social
  • “A free resource and education hub that shares best practices for creating accessible and inclusive social media content.”
  • Includes an accessible social media guidebook and checklist. 

Accessible Language

• Plain Language Writing Guide for City of Evanston
• COE Inclusive Language Guide
• Cool Tool: Hemingway Editor 
  • Editing tool designed to improve writing clarity and conciseness by identifying and highlighting common errors and sentence structure issues (helps with plain language). 

For Website Editors

• Website Training Hub (COE staff intranet)
• Digital Accessibility Checklist for Website Editors (COE IT Helpdesk Knowledgebase) 
• Cool Tool: HTML Cleaner
  • If you're moving content between docs and web editors, this tool can help strip away any unnecessary formatting. 

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4. Free Digital Accessibility Tools

General:

• a11y tools
• NVDA Screen Reader
  • Free screen reader for Windows to test how content is read aloud.

Web:

• Silktide Accessibility Checker 
  • A free web browser plug-in for checking accessibility. This tool is particularly useful for checking webpages and digital forms. It includes a color contrast checker. 
• WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools
• ANDI Accessibility Checker

Documents + PDFs:

• Microsoft Accessibility Checker
  • Built-in accessibility checker for Microsoft Office documents, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• PAC PDF Accessibility Checker
  • An industry-standard tool for checking PDF compliance. This is a free program you download to your desktop. 
• How to Use FoxIt's PDF Accessibility Checker (Video Tutorial)
  • The FoxIt PDF Accessibility Checker is included in our FoxIt PDF Editor software. 

Social Media:

• Canva Accessibility Tool: Using Canva's Design Accessibility Tool

Color Contrast:

• TPGi Color Contrast Checker
  • Free downloadable application for checking color contrast, with dropper for selecting color
• Contrast Checker – WebAIM
  • Web-based tool comparing hexadecimal color codes

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5. Additional Resources

• The A11y Project
• W3C Web Accessibility Tutorials
  • Free tutorials on testing and evaluating the accessibility of web content.