ATI Newsletter - Spring 2023

March 10, 2023

A Message from our ATI Steering Committee Sponsors

Welcome to the latest issue of our Accessible Technology Newsletter.  At CSULB, we are committed to providing a diverse and supportive academic and work environment that facilitates learning, teaching, working, and research for all students and employees.  

The campus ATI Steering Committee is the organization charged by the CSULB President to coordinate campus efforts to ensure that our campus technology services and information systems are accessible to all students, employees, and the general public, including individuals with disabilities.  The ATI Steering Committee focuses primarily on three aspects of our accessible technology initiative - accessible instructional materials, accessible web, and the procurement of accessible technology equipment and services.

In this issue of the Accessible Technology Newsletter, we are sharing with you the CSU Academic Senate’s resolution to promote the use of Atkinson Hyperlegible Font, the CSUN Accessible Technology Conference, the campus accessibility technology consultation hours, the hands-on training opportunity for making documents accessible, and a few other ATI items.

We hope that you will find this issue of the Accessible Technology Newsletter informative.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the campus ATI Steering Committee for their efforts of keeping our campus in compliance with CSU ATI standards.

Go Beach!

Beth Lessen, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Affairs
Accessible Technology Initiative Sponsor & Co-Chair

Min Yao, Ph.D.
Vice President & Chief Information Officer
Accessible Technology Initiative Sponsor & Co-Chair

Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

Recently, the CSU systemwide academic senate passed a resolution to encourage the use of the Atkinson Hyperlegible font to help vision challenged people.  The campus Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) Steering Committee welcomes this resolution and has contacted the CSU Chancellor’s Office to ask that the California State University system encourage software developers like Microsoft, Google, and Adobe to include Atkinson hyperlegible font in their future software updates.  The campus ATI Committee also encourages campus web developers and editors, and everyone else, to use Atkinson Hyperlegible font whenever it is needed and appropriate. 
Currently there are only four Atkinson Hyperlegible font types: regular, bold, regular italic, and bold italic.
For more information and the free download of Atkinson Hyperlegible font, please visit the website of the Braille Institute:  Download the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font | Braille Institute.

CSUN Assistive Technology Conference (March 13-17 Anaheim Marriot)

In its continuing commitment to accessibility, our campus is sending 17 attendees to the annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference.  This conference is held in Anaheim from March 13 through March 17, at the Anaheim Marriott. This year we are sending 16 staff, from all divisions, and 2 student assistants.

Accessibility Office Hours

Mark Mintz, our campus Web & Digital Accessibility Analyst, is now offering accessibility office hours. These office hours will be scheduled regularly and on different days to allow individuals on hybrid schedules the opportunity to meet with Mark and receive help with accessibility issues. 

Teams Meeting Link

  • First three Thursdays of the month from 3 p.m.- 4 p.m.
  • Every 4th Wednesday of the month from 10 a.m.-11 a.m.

Join the Accessibility Office Outreach Teams Group for updated meeting information.

Document Accessibility Training

In addition to Accessibility Office Hours, Mark Mintz also offers monthly Document Accessibility Training for the web that is available to the campus community. Please visit the ITS Software Training Services Calendar for these and other IT training offerings and to sign-up.

Improve Your Document Links

Links are a critical part of what makes the internet valuable and using them properly can help all users more easily access your content. Links must have human-readable link text, as seen by screen readers and by mousing over by those not using screen readers. Assistive Technology reads a raw URL one character at a time if it cannot make words, so it can be difficult to determine where a raw URL leads. Text that describes the purpose of the link will also assist people scanning the page visually for links. It is best practice to be specific about the link in context, explaining what information will be available at the link, or why you are providing this link. Screen reader users often access a list of links on a page as a method of skimming the content, so it is critical that linked text is specific to the reason for the content.

Good examples of link text:

Avoid using ambiguous text:

Did You Know…

There are ways to make your social media content, images, and videos more accessible. Check out these best practices for social media accessibility