Leveraging AI to Improve Your Web Accessibility

Imagine reaching every prospective student, engaging every alumnus, and connecting with every community member online, regardless of their abilities. That’s possible when your website and online content are accessible.

Web accessibility isn’t just something to check off your legalities list; it’s a gateway to a broader audience and a reflection of your university’s commitment to inclusivity. 

When your digital presence follows accessibility standards (outlined in documentation like WCAG), you’re meeting your website’s ethical and legal obligations. But you’re also unlocking untapped potential for more growth and engagement. 

It’s a lot of work to understand everything you need to know to be accessible, but many AI-powered tools make your life much easier.

I’ll be totally honest – I’m pretty vocal of my overall distrust for how we’re relying on AI. However, it can be a huge benefit for your university’s web accessibility when you’re using it correctly.

With the right tools (and an understanding that you need to double check their work), AI can help you to increase your efficiency, improve your overall accuracy and consistency, and enhance your user experience.

No longer are you getting bogged down by WCAG standards and constantly researching; instead, you’re able to make accessibility a successful part of your process and work on strategic initiatives. All while creating a culture of inclusivity.

Not all tools are created equally, so let’s break down the ones that actually work.

Manual web accessibility methods have a ton of advantages, but they can often be time-consuming and require the assistance of an accessibility expert. AI has made it possible for web accessibility to be a part of our everyday process. Those once tedious tasks are now easy to incorporate.

For one, you now have access to automated accessibility audits. While automated tools will never find all of your web accessibility issues, they can quickly scan your website to help you find some common barriers. Tools like WebAim’s WAVE tool can help you find missing alternative text on images, insufficient color contrast, and improper use of headings.

I’ve been running web accessibility tests for years, and tools like WAVE make it a lot easier to go through multiple pages of a website. The issues that it finds are some of the most common problems and it helps us find them without digging through the code or going through with a screen reader.

Imagine finding a host of issues in seconds instead of hours? That’s the power of WAVE and other AI tools.

Many websites are written in language that’s technical and hard for your users to understand; universities are no exception. We believe because our target audience is educated means that we can use technical jargon and complex phrasing.

The reality? A lot of people in that target audience might be dyslexic or have other reading issues. All of them, however, want to be able to skim your website and quickly get the information they need.

Fun fact: no one reads every word on your website and no one wants to.

Making your content more accessible means aiming for a lower reading level (think secondary level). It also means improving the overall readability of that content.

When we are super close to the content, it can be difficult to really see those issues. Using a tool like Hemingway or Grammarly can help us identify the reading level we’re reaching and then offer suggestions to simplify our content or improve clarity.

These AI tools can become your content assistants to ensure that you’re writing content everyone in your audience can read and understand with ease.

The images and videos we use on our websites are inherently inaccessible. Not everyone can visually see that media or hear the narration. AI tools are a fantastic way to help improve that content and make it useable for everyone.

Let’s start with making images useable. If you’ve never written ALT text for an image, it can feel a bit overwhelming. What exactly do you put in that box in order to help a blind or visually impaired person understand the context? While the point is to have a simple description of what’s in the image, most of my team overcomplicates it the first few times they try.

Make it easy with AHrefs ALT Text Generator. You upload an image, they give you a few options for the ALT text. Because it’s AI, it’s taking a best guess at the context of the image. This is a great starting point, but you should always edit the answers provided for the context of your actual page.

With video, you need to provide some kind of captions or transcripts for the narration in the video. Your hard of hearing students will thank you. And honestly, so will most of your browsers. 80% are more likely to finish a video when there are captions or subtitles.

You can make captioning super easy with AI tools like Rev’s automated transcripts, Descript, or even through Adobe Premiere Pro.

Any auto-captioning tool may make mistakes, so it’s a good idea to go in and review the work, but it saves you a ton of time and money compared to manual transcription services.

Before you run away from this article excited that AI can solve your compliance issues, I’m going to throw some cold water on you. AI tools are just that – tools. They can be added to your arsenal to make your job easier, but they don’t replace web accessibility experts or manual checks.

Not all AI tools are created equally, so stick to the ones that I mentioned above or that have been tested and used by other AI experts. You want ones that have a strong track record for being accurate.

Another thing to consider? You don’t want to use a tool that requires you to install anything into your website. Those tools typically add an overlay which can actually cause more accessibility issues than they solve.

Instead, you want something external that scans your website or makes your processes a bit easier; not something that necessarily makes those changes for you.

Most importantly – you still need human oversight. AI can identify and suggest improvements, but it can’t catch all of the barriers that individuals with disabilities will encounter when trying to use a website. I use AI tools to help make my job easier, but we’re still doing manual testing and improvements all of the time.

Web accessibility isn’t a niche concern; it’s a fundamental strategy and need to reach all of your potential students. Accessibility means a greater reach, more engagement, and a better user experience for every single student.

AI-powered tools are the key to making accessibility a part of your content creation process. When you leverage these tools, you can build a more inclusive and successful digital future for your institution.