A Space for Thoughtful 
About the Client
Our client is a leading private, non-profit online university dedicated to delivering affordable, accredited, and career-focused degree programs. The institution emphasizes flexible, self-paced learning pathways that make higher education more accessible while supporting measurable career outcomes for a diverse, global learner population.
Challenges They Faced
The university aimed to ensure that its extensive library of educational materials met the WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA accessibility standards, thereby enabling equitable access for all learners, including those who use assistive technologies.
Key challenges included:
- Diverse Content Ecosystem – Learning resources spanned multiple formats, including web pages, PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel files, videos, and digital textbooks, each requiring format-specific accessibility remediation.
- Complex Document Structures – Many PDFs and Office files contained intricate tables, charts, formulas, and multi-column layouts that required careful restructuring to ensure semantic clarity and screen reader compatibility.
- Non-Textual and Technical Content Accessibility – The materials included mathematical expressions, chemical equations, and code snippets (Python, Java, JavaScript, and database scripts), requiring precise textual equivalents and descriptive transcripts.
- Scalable Compliance Requirements – The university needed solutions that not only resolved current accessibility gaps but also established repeatable processes to support long-term compliance across future course materials.
Solutions We Offered
To achieve the university’s accessibility goals, a comprehensive, standards-driven remediation strategy was implemented:
- Holistic Accessibility Evaluation – Conducted detailed audits across all content types using a combination of manual testing and automated tools to identify compliance gaps and usability barriers.
- Advanced Document Remediation – Reconstructed complex PDFs, Word, and PowerPoint files to ensure proper tagging, logical reading order, accessible tables, and screen reader compatibility.
- Accessible Technical Content Transformation – Developed accurate transcripts and alternative descriptions for mathematical content, chemical equations, and programming code to ensure comprehension for assistive technology users.
- Standards-Based Accessibility Enhancements – Applied best practices including meaningful alt text, semantic structuring, color contrast improvements, and keyboard navigability.
- Rigorous Validation and Testing – Verified compliance using industry-standard tools such as AXE, WAVE, IBM Equal Access, ANDI, and PAC, ensuring consistent adherence to WCAG standards.
Results We Delivered
- Remediated and validated accessibility across 6,000+ learning assets, ensuring compatibility with screen readers, keyboard navigation, and assistive technologies used by students with visual, motor, and cognitive disabilities..
- Re-engineered complex academic materials—including multi-layered tables, mathematical expressions, chemical equations, code samples, and multimedia elements—into structured, semantically tagged formats that support accurate interpretation by assistive tools.
- Removed access barriers in core course materials, enabling students to independently navigate, interpret, and complete learning activities without requiring alternative formats or manual intervention.
- Implemented repeatable remediation workflows and documentation, allowing internal teams to apply consistent accessibility practices across newly developed and updated course content.
- Prepared the institution for formal accessibility reviews and compliance verification, minimizing remediation backlogs and ensuring readiness for regulatory audits and accreditation requirements.
Client Quote
“This initiative marked a major milestone in making thousands of our learning resources accessible. The team’s expertise, consistency, and standards-driven approach gave us complete confidence in both the quality and the scale of delivery.”
