Why Accessibility?

By “digital accessibility”, we mean web sites and applications that are able to be used and accessed by individuals regardless of their physical, auditory, motor, or cognitive abilities or disabilities. Making Yale’s digital content accessible aligns with Yale’s mission to disseminate knowledge and to promote diversity and inclusion throughout our community.

While accessibility is necessary for some groups to use the web, it is beneficial for nearly everyone. Accessibility promotes usability generally: everyone benefits from clear instructions, opportunities to correct form errors, simple visual layouts, high color contrast, and the option to read a transcript or captions to a video or audio recording.

Finally, web sites and applications that are coded for accessibility are more compliant with web technical standards, meaning they are more likely to work across platforms and continue to work across future devices as technologies change. Many developers find that coding for accessibility speeds up development time and reduces bugs of all kinds once software has been launched.