Accessibility Recommendations for Community Leaders

Wisr strives to provide a highly accessible experience for all of its users. As a social platform that allows users to post their own content, including text, photos and videos, there is additional responsibility on our community leaders and university administrators to make sure content in those posts follow accessibility best practices. This article outlines recommendations.

Video Captions

Videos are most commonly shared through Posts in our Discussions feature. Wisr currently supports embedding video files from YouTube and Wistia by following these instructions.

If you are embedding a video, please use the functionality within YouTube and Wistia to provide closed captions and audio description whenever possible. Wistia, for example, offers video caption services built into the application along side an accessibility checklist.

Descriptive Links for Videos

While embedded videos are very convenient, they are not always the most accessible for those who are visually impaired. Often times the play button and other features are not well interpreted by a screen reader. To help, you can provide a descriptive link that opens a new window with the video.

Here is an example of a non-descriptive link: https://youtu.be/QVhnwa7ipXY

Here is an example of a descriptive link:  Click here to watch a video describing EAB's Mission and Vision (0:57)

It is also helpful to post the runtime for the video clip.

Escape Button

Wisr works to prevent any ‘dead ends’ inside of the app, which references an area of the site where you can’t easily hit the back button or use navigation to move somewhere convenient. In some cases, a browser may open an interface (e.g. Calendar Picker) that is not well interpreted by a screen reader. In these cases, Wisr works to add in escape button capabilities to easily exit the menu. Should a member of your team get asked for help on this matter, we recommend making this recommendation.

If you have additional recommendations as a user of our product, please write us at wr-support@eab.com