CUNY has pledged to make their digital tools and content accessible. To that end CUNY uses the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG AA) as its accessibility standard. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were created to help define how to make web content more accessible with the goal of providing a single shared standard.
There are four main guiding principles of accessibility upon which WCAG has been built. These four principles are known by the acronym POUR.
POUR is a way of approaching web accessibility by breaking it down into four main aspects:
POUR is a way of approaching web accessibility by breaking it down into these four main aspects. Many of the technology challenges faced by people with disabilities can be described using one of the POUR principles. Read to learn more about POUR.
Means the user can identify content and interface elements by means of the senses. For many users, this means perceiving a system primarily visually, while for others, perceivability may be a matter of sound or touch.
Means that a user can successfully use controls, buttons, navigation, and other interactive elements. For many users this means using assistive technology like voice recognition, keyboards, screen readers etc.
Users should be able to comprehend the content, and learn and remember how to use your OER site. Your OER should be consistent in its presentation and format, predictable in its design and usage patterns, and appropriate to the audience in its voice and tone.
Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of users, allowing them to choose the technology they use to interact with websites, online documents, multimedia, and other information formats. Users should be allowed to choose their own technologies to access OER content.
Read the actual WCAG POUR guides: Perceivable , Operable , Understandable and Robust .