Our committment to accessibility
We are committed to making dal.ca an inclusive space. We strive for conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standards in the belief that website accessibility efforts help everyone and that it is our collective responsibility to ensure equitable access to our website and services for all members of our community.
A strategic approach
The 2021-2026 Strategic Plan: Third Century Promise, outlines our commitment to prioritize the work of our Diversity and Inclusiveness Strategy.
Access by Design 2030: Achieving an Accessible Nova Scotia
Access by Design 2030 provides a framework for how the province will achieve the goal of an accessible Nova Scotia by 2030 and identifies priorities for this work.
The Post-Secondary Accessibilty Framework includes the goal that information and communication at Nova Scotia’s post-secondary institutions be accessible. Commitments to this goal include:
- Ensuring the communications policies, procedures, and practices at post-secondary institutions facilitate accessibility.
- Ensuring institutional communication is delivered in formats that are accessible.
- Adopting a common standard to ensure the accessibility of post-secondary institution websites (e.g. WCAG 2.1 AA).
Dalhousie University is committed to moving to an accessible Nova Scotia by 2030.
Conformance status
The WCAG defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.
Partial Conformance
Dal.ca is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.
Assessment approach
Dalhousie University assessed the accessibility of dal.ca by the following approaches:
Self-evaluation
External evaluation
Limitations and alternatives
Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility of dal.ca , there may be some limitations. Below is a description of known limitations, and potential solutions. Please contact us if you observe an issue not listed below.
Known limitations for dal.ca:
- Some text, links and buttons have poor colour contrast.
- Some page headings are labelled in the wrong order.
- Many older PDF documents are not accessible to screen reader software.
- Some live and pre-recorded video and audio do not have transcripts, audio descriptions or captions.
- Many images do not have text descriptions.
What we’re doing to improve web accessibility
Accessibilty is a cornerstone of our multi-year web renewal project. We’re making the site more accessible by:
- Redesigning the site in line with the latest accessiblity standards.
- Educating and supporting web authors at Dal to make their sites accessible.
- Using web scanning tools to alert us of accessiblity issues so that they can addressed.
- Providing ways for users to alert us of accessiblity issues.
- Ongoing testing and web content audits.
