Creating accessible content is extremely important. Not only does Portland State’s Electronic and Information Technology policy require content meet accessibility guidelines, utilizing accessibility best practices also allows a larger audience to access and understand the information your content is communicating.
Consider the following facts:
15.4% of adults in the United States have cognitive and/or vision disabilities. This translates to over 36 million people.
In a world-wide survey of screen-reader users, over 75% of people indicate that PDFs are either somewhat or very likely to pose significant accessibility barriers.
There are thousands of PDFs on the main Portland State website (pdx.edu).
Over 4,000 PDFs on the Portland State website have undergone automated testing, and over 90% of these PDFs have one or more accessibility barriers.
Our document accessibility articles will guide you through accessibility principles and best practices you should consider when creating content and repairing documents with accessibility barriers.
There are two articles to select from depending on your use case:
Article | Use Case |
|---|---|
Situations in which you have access to the original document and its associated authoring program. | |
Situations in which you’ve inherited a PDF and do not have access to the original document or its associated authoring program. |
Please note that Adobe Acrobat Pro is required in order to generate fully accessible PDFs. Departments may purchase copies by submitting a software installation request through the OIT Helpdesk.
Please reach out to the IT accessibility team if you have any questions or concerns.