Colleges of agriculture, liberal arts win Web Accessibility Awards
The websites for the College of Agriculture and the College of Liberal Arts have received 2012 Web Accessibility Awards from the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE).
The websites are found at www.ag.purdue.edu and www.cla.purdue.edu, respectively. Through grants from Google and the Office of the Vice President for Ethics and Compliance, each college will receive $1,000 to assist with future accessible Web design efforts.
In addition to its ease of navigation, the College of Agriculture's site incorporates accessibility features that include skip navigation and labels for form fields. Nearly all of the site's PDFs were tagged to improve accessibility; the site also includes a link to turn on a more accessible mode when viewed in SharePoint.
Given the large volume of Web pages the site comprises, its accessibility is very impressive, according to Purdue's Web accessibility committee.
The College of Liberal Arts' site goes beyond meeting the University's standards for accessible Web design and implements a well-organized, user-friendly interface. Although structurally its navigation is at the bottom of the page, the navigation visually appears at the top, removing the need for a skip navigation link and providing quick access to the page's content. The college's website also includes good header structure, use of contrast and a reader link for PDFs.
Purdue's Web Accessibility Awards were initiated in 2011 as a way to recognize colleges, schools, departments, programs and units that have made strides in meeting or exceeding the University's standards for accessible Web design while demonstrating excellence in design and communication.
Two winners will be named each year during the four-year implementation of the Web Accessibility Policy.
