By: Anya Fuller
When the University of Michigan launched the Digital Accessibility Strategic Initiative in 2024, the ADVANCE Program began a comprehensive effort to improve digital accessibility across its research, programming, and communications.
ADVANCE develops resources that support faculty across the university. Its research reports, presentations, and publications often include complex PDFs, charts, tables, and data visualizations that require thoughtful accessibility practices so everyone, including people using screen readers and other assistive technologies, can fully access the content.
Kelsey Arras, Communication and Project Specialist and Digital Accessibility Liaison, led ADVANCE’s digital accessibility efforts with support from program leadership and colleagues across the department. ADVANCE Director Denise Sekaquaptewa and the senior leadership team encouraged the initiative, while contributors Kolbe Sussman, Anli Peng, and fellow research team members helped make accessibility a shared responsibility, particularly for research reports.
“Digital accessibility aligns with ADVANCE Program values,” Arras said. “We’re really thinking about how we integrate this into our everyday work.”
Rather than treating accessibility as a final review before publication, ADVANCE incorporated accessible practices throughout the content development process. Staff redesigned the research report workflow to consider accessibility from the beginning. Writers now use heading structures to organize content for assistive technologies, and every publication undergoes an accessibility review before release. ADVANCE also introduced screen reader-friendly appendices to make complex research data easier to navigate.
To support these efforts, Arras, Sussman, and Peng created a PDF Accessibility Handbook to help staff remediate and publish accessible documents. Arras also developed an HTML Guidebook with practical guidance for creating accessible web content.
Arras expanded accessibility knowledge across the unit by developing training for staff and student employees. The training gave participants the tools and confidence to create accessible content in their everyday work. Accessibility soon became a shared responsibility across the unit.
“Everybody has an ownership piece of it, which is really exciting,” Arras said. “These projects are most successful when everyone has the tools, knowledge, and confidence to contribute.”
The initiative extended beyond research publications to improve access across ADVANCE’s digital resources. Arras and Shawn Beard used Siteimprove to raise the accessibility score of the ADVANCE website to an average of 85%. ADVANCE also digitized more than 20 years of departmental records into searchable digital archives, making those records easier to find, search, and use.
The work demonstrates that digital accessibility is not simply a compliance task or a final step before publication. By integrating accessibility into everyday workflows, ADVANCE has created practices that can benefit both content creators and the faculty and communities they serve.
ADVANCE will continue applying accessible practices to new research reports while expanding these workflows to presentations, handouts, and other communications materials. As accessibility standards, technology, and assistive tools evolve, the team will continue refining its processes and resources to ensure accessibility remains an integral part of its everyday work.