Office of Institutional Equity names Web Accessibility Award recipients
June 20, 2013
The Office of Institutional Equity has announced the 2013 Web Accessibility Award recipients: the Krannert School of Management undergraduate website and the Institute for Accessible Science Hub.
Purdue's Web Accessibility Awards were initiated in 2011 as a way to recognize colleges, schools, departments, programs and units that have made great strides in meeting or exceeding the University's standards for accessible Web design while demonstrating excellence in design and communication.
The Krannert School of Management undergraduate website at www.krannert.purdue.edu/undergraduate was selected for being an excellent example of how visual design and Web accessibility can work together to provide information to all users in an efficient and well-designed manner. In addition to meeting the University's standard for accessible Web design, the website is well-organized and has a responsive design useful for mobile devices. The banner slideshow includes a pause button, which gives users the ability to stop a slide and read the information. The site includes tagged images with alternative text, and videos are closed captioned. The site is also accessible to keyboard-only users, which is important because many individuals are unable to use a mouse.
The Institute for Accessible Science Hub at http://iashub.org was selected for meeting the University's standard for accessible Web design and for being well-organized and user-friendly. When JavaScript is turned off, individuals can still see the links on the site. The site tags images with alternative text to improve accessibility, and videos on the website are closed captioned. The site also has an Accessibility Statement and a unique form for submitting accessibility issues within the website. The overall accessibility of the Institute for Accessible Science Hub was deemed very impressive given the large volume of Web pages the website includes.
The monetary award of $1,000 will assist each of these recipients in furthering their efforts in the area of accessible Web design. The awards are sponsored by a grant from Google and the Office of the Vice President for Ethics and Compliance.
