Table of Contents
Overview
Public Catalog Accessibility
Internal Application Accessibility
Commitment to Remediation
Related Articles
Overview
Accessibility plays a crucial role in the design of public-facing sites Coursedog can help you create (e.g. Course Catalog and Events sites), and we prioritize Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA-Level compliance for those.
Coursedog has a full-time UX designer who reviews all changes for usability and accessibility on a regular monthly cadence.
Each item is tested for accessibility during initial prototyping, during development, and during final QA.
We also cover a large part of accessibility standards in our internal applications, and major application flows/jobs can be performed by all groups of users.
We are currently assessing our general accessibility and building a backlog of necessary improvements.
We partner with clients if/when they raise accessibility concerns.
Public Catalog Accessibility
Overview | Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) | Additional Considerations
Additional Accessibility Audits
Overview
Our public course catalog has accessible keyboard-based navigation support.
Users can browse the public website and use all controls just by using their keyboard.
Screen reader support is also accessible; all the labeling is appropriate and understandable.
You can find commonly asked accessibility questions addressed here.
Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)
We completed a VPAT assessment of our public Catalogs March 2023.
Overall, no critical issues were found, and our External Catalog accessibility level meets the WCAG 2.1 AA-Level standard. Our service enables all users, including those who utilize keyboards and screen readers, to efficiently browse Catalog content.
You can find full details of the report attached at the bottom of this article as a PDF.
Additional Considerations
The public-facing Catalog page is customizable which means good color contrast will depend on the school's choice of theme and their official colors.
If you run into any color contrast issues as a result of your chosen theme/colors, reach out to your Customer Success representative or submit a support ticket for help achieving the best possible contrast without compromising too much of your preferred theme.
Additional Accessibility Audits
Overview | Google Lighthouse | WebAIM WAVE Report
Overview
In addition to our VPAT, Catalog pages created in Coursedog have been audited for accessibility by respected third-party tools. See below for results.
Google Lighthouse
Homepage | Program List Page | Program Page | Course List Page
Course Page | Custom Page
Homepage
Program List Page
Program Page
Course List Page
Course Page
Custom Page
WebAIM WAVE Report
Internal Application Accessibility
Overview
We design all feature proposals with accessibility in mind, follow industry-standard code quality practices, and test each feature before release.
That said, our internal application is primarily designed for high-caliber tasks (e.g. Catalog page creation, workflow design, etc.) where phone screens are not the most comfortable devices for performing such actions. Consequently, our applications perform best at tablet resolutions or bigger.
We support keyboards and screen readers in a large majority of elements, but some parts of the application might not be fully accessible.
Due to the vast number of interactive elements available on each screen (long curriculum forms, template builders, etc.), it might be difficult to use keyboards/screen readers effectively.
Known Accessibility Breaches
Coursedog is aware that there are minor current accessibility breaches on heavyset parts of the internal Coursedog user interface (UI).
When administrators run tasks such as the Section Optimizer, we found some "icon only" buttons lack proper labeling for screen readers (such as course material delete buttons inside the Section Editor modal).
Some items that are expandable lack proper "state" labeling for screen readers so the users might have trouble understanding if the item is expandable/expanded or not. This is in the process of being fixed through proper aria attributes.
Commitment to Remediation
Above all, Coursedog prioritizes fixes to all accessibility breaches and expects to obtain a VPAT showing full compliance across all applications in the near future.