USM Accessibility in Action October Newsletter

Accessibility At-a-Glance

Accessible links and navigation are fundamental to digital equity, ensuring all users—regardless of ability or assistive technology—can effectively discover, understand, and interact with your content without barriers.

What's Inside

• Why Links and Navigation Matter

• Accessible Links in 5 Minutes: Your Quick Fix Guide

• Tools & Tactics: Test your Materials with Keyboard Navigation

• Before & After: The Importance of Descriptive Links

• Campus in Focus: Frostburg State University's Accessibility Assistant Agent

• Your Monthly Move: Remediate Your Links & Navigation

• Learn More

• Register for our Zoom Monthly Remediation Sprints

Why Links and Navigation Matter

Links and navigation are the foundation of how we move through digital content. When they're poorly implemented, they create real barriers, especially for people using keyboard navigation or screen readers. Descriptive links don't just help those using assistive technology; they make content more usable for everyone.

Have you ever seen a document cluttered with long, messy URLs pasted directly into the text? Not only do these create visual chaos for sighted users, but they're also incredibly frustrating when read aloud by screen readers (imagine hearing "h-t-t-p-s-colon-slash-slash-w-w-w…" for every link!). Using clean, descriptive links that tell users where they're going improves the experience for everyone navigating your documents, accessing content from your emails, and engaging with material in your LMS.

Accessible Links in 5 Minutes: Your Quick Fix Guide

The Quick Fix Guide this month provides simple, actionable steps to transform problematic links into accessible links for all users. Download this one-page Links resource for platform-specific instructions on creating descriptive links and cleaning up messy URLs—all designed to help you make your documents more accessible with minimal time investment.

Tools & Tactics: Test Your Websites and LMS Content with Keyboard Navigation

Many of us rely on our monitor and mouse or trackpad without thinking twice, but some of us navigate digital content using only a keyboard. In fact, many learners rely entirely on the keyboard because they use assistive technologies like screen readers or due to motor disabilities. If your course activity or shared report can't be reviewed and completed without a mouse, it's not accessible! Want to understand the keyboard-only experience? Here's a simple 2-minute keyboard navigation challenge you can try right now:

The 2-Minute Keyboard Challenge

Open your department's website, your professional blog site, or your course in the LMS and complete this challenge.

1. Put your mouse aside (seriously—move it out of reach!)

2. Try these basic commands:

• Tab key: Moves forward through links, buttons, and form fields

• Shift+Tab: Moves backward

• Spacebar: Activates a button or toggles a checkbox

• Arrow keys: Navigates within text or menus

1. Complete these quick tasks in a webpage:

• Navigate to a heading

• Follow a link

• Fill in a form field or checkbox

What You Might Notice

• Is it clear where you are on the page? (Can you see a focus indicator, or blue outlines, around buttons or other elements?)

• Does the tab order make logical sense?

• Can you access everything you need without a mouse?

• How much longer does it take to complete a simple task?

Try It in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint (Windows & Mac)

To use Microsoft applications with only your keyboard, familiarize yourself with built-in keyboard shortcuts for commands like copy (Ctrl+C for Windows or Cmd+C for Mac) and save (Ctrl+S for Windows or Cmd+S for Mac). Navigating Microsoft applications using only the keyboard varies by operating system. To learn more about how to navigate with your system, visit Microsoft Support Keyboard Shortcuts in Word, Microsoft Support Keyboard Shortcuts in Excel, and Microsoft Support Keyboard Shortcuts to Create PowerPoint Presentations.

Why This Matters

When you experience keyboard navigation firsthand, you'll better understand why descriptive links, logical heading structure, and proper tab order are essential for accessibility. What might be a minor inconvenience for some could be a major barrier for others who rely on keyboard navigation every day.

Want to learn more?

Check out WebAIM's Keyboard Accessibility Guide or try the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool to identify keyboard navigation issues on your webpages.

Before & After: The Importance of Descriptive Links

The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights created this four-minute video to demonstrate the importance of making your links accessible on websites. These simple principles also apply for documents (Microsoft Word, Google Docs), email communications, and slide decks!