Today, 19 May, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), which aims to shine a light on the importance of digital access and inclusion for people with disability or impairments. 

According to a report by WebAIM, 98.1% of web homepages have at least one failure to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and there are an average of 60.9 errors per homepage. Some of the most common causes of accessibility failures are:  

  • text that is too low in contrast 
  • lack of alternative text for images 
  • empty links  
  • missing form input labels. 

Accessibility at Griffith 

Griffith Library strives to make it easier for everyone in the University community to access our materials by constantly monitoring our website for ease of access and providing a range of electronic journal and book formats in databases that we subscribe to. Most of the texts we subscribe to not only have a PDF version available for download, but are also required to be offered in HTML which can more easily be read by screen readers.  

Each video on our website has the option of turning on closed captions or a link to a transcript of the video. For our Earlybird workshops at the beginning of each trimester, automatic closed captions are available when you attend a workshop and guidance for turning these on is provided at the beginning of the session. Any workshop that is provided by our staff via MS Teams also has the option of turning on this feature—please ask us during the session if you need guidance as to how to do this. 

Our campuses also have assistive technology labs that eligible students can use to access a range of assistive technology hardware and software.  

If you find anything on our website difficult to access for any reason, or are having problems accessing videos on our website, please let us know via the Provide Feedback link at the bottom of the webpage. We’re keen to hear of any improvements that we can make. 

Increase your work’s accessibility 

We know that our students are usually required to produce digital materials, even if they’re only MS Word documents or spreadsheets, and making these materials fully accessible is a transferrable skill that’s becoming more attractive to employers. It’s the best way to increase a company’s customer base.  

The Library’s Digital Capability Advisers can help you ensure that the digital material you produce is fully accessible to everyone—just complete the Get help from the Library form to request their assistance.