ANR Update
Article

Accessibility Reminder and Key Compliance Steps

  • April 3, 2026
  • By Kathy Eftekhari

Dear Colleagues,

I’m sending a reminder that the April 24, 2026, deadline for compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards is rapidly approaching. By now, all new digital posts must be compliant with the new guidelines. Any content posted after March 15 that is not compliant will be unpublished. 

Key Compliance Steps:

We understand this is a huge undertaking. Here is how we recommend you prioritize the effort.

  1. Start by getting access to the Siteimprove tool used to identify your website’s accessibility issues (to get access, contact IT at help@ucanr.edu).
  2. Target your highest-risk and highest-trafficked public facing content first (e.g. websites, social media, marketing emails).
  3. Delete outdated content. This is a critical time to do housekeeping on your digital assets.
  4. Add proper heading styles to PDF and Word documents that allow assistive technology to function.
  5. Use bulleted or numbered lists to provide structure for screen readers. For lists where the order matters, use a numbered list style.
  6. Add alt text to images, graphs, and diagrams. This is one of the most common accessibility defects. Screen readers, software, and search engines use Alt Text to communicate an image’s meaning for Blind users and for Search Engine Optimization.
  7. Mark purely decorative images as decorative – In IWP use the decorative setting on images so screen readers ignore them. This prevents unnecessary clutter for assistive‑technology users.
  8. Use meaningful hyperlink text that effectively describes the link rather than “click here” or “learn more” which doesn’t communicate meaning via a screen reader. Avoid providing only a web address because that doesn’t tell users where the link takes them in a user-friendly way.
  9. Add video captions, transcripts and audio descriptions. ADA-compliant videos ensure everyone can access your visual content. Compliance means adding accurate captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions, and using players that work entirely by keyboard.
  10. Archive documents and non-compliant pages. UC ANR IT is currently testing a simple “archive” feature that will be deployed prior to April 13. Instructions on this feature will be sent with its deployment. Content that meets all of the following criteria may be archived once the feature becomes available.
  • It was created or is a digital copy of something that was created before  April 24, 2026. (Example: old PDFs, scanned paper files, images of old reports, etc.)
  • The material is kept only for reference, research, or record‑keeping – not for ongoing work or marketing.
  • No changes or updates will be made to the item after it is archived.
  • The item is stored in a dedicated area (or areas) that is clearly identified as an archive. (IT is working on this dedicated area now.)

YouTube Videos:

YouTube is considered a social media platform; therefore, video content posted prior to the April 24 deadline does not need to be remediated unless the video is embedded on a UC ANR website. The responsibility for accessibility compliance falls upon the video creators. Please ensure that all content you are posting now is compliant. Contact Strategic Communications for guidance on publishing accessible videos. 

Shared Responsibility:

UC ANR is committed to making digital content accessible to all users as part of our mission to provide equitable access to our programs and information. Fulfilling this commitment requires that everyone who creates digital content learns the professional competency of making it accessible and builds accessibility into their workflows.

There are many curated training resources on the ANR Digital Accessibility website.

We have recently hired two full-time IT personnel who are 100% dedicated to accessibility compliance and we are interviewing for a full-time Accessibility Project Manager. I’d especially like to thank the Digital Accessibility Taskforce for their ongoing time, interest, and commitment to this critically important endeavor; their work has made a huge difference!

Best,
Kathy

Kathy Eftekhari
Interim AVP, Administrative Services and Chief of Staff