How UC Berkeley Is Scaling Accessibility Across a Decentralized Research University

Overview

The University of California, Berkeley is one of the nation’s leading public research universities, with thousands of faculty, researchers, administrators, and content producers publishing digital materials across a highly decentralized institutional environment.

To support accessibility compliance under ADA Title II and WCAG standards, departments across the university engaged Word Wizards for remediation, consulting, and accessible publishing support.

Over time, the engagement evolved into a multi-year strategic partnership serving research centers, academic units, communications teams, and administrative departments across campus.

Results & Impact

• Delivered WCAG-compliant remediation for reports, publications, slide decks, and public-facing communications.
• Supported multiple Berkeley departments and research centers through ongoing engagements.
• Expanded services through internal referrals and cross-campus recommendations.
• Provided practical accessibility guidance for content creators and communications teams.
• Reduced long-term remediation effort through accessible publishing education.
• Demonstrated rapid response capability for time-sensitive research publication deadlines.

The Challenge

UC Berkeley’s decentralized operating model created a unique accessibility governance challenge. Individual schools, centers, and departments manage their own publishing workflows, design practices, and budgets with limited centralized oversight.

As a result, accessibility maturity levels varied significantly across departments, and many content creators lacked formal training in accessible publishing and document design.

The university needed an accessibility partner capable of supporting diverse stakeholders while delivering both immediate remediation services and long-term guidance that could improve publishing practices across departments.

The Solution

Word Wizards provided remediation and consulting services tailored to the needs of individual university departments and research centers based on their specific needs.

The engagement included:

• PDF and document remediation to achieve compliance
• Accessible slide remediation for webinar and presentation content
• Semantic tagging and structure correction for complicated documents
• Alternative text development for images with critical information
• Reading order optimization to ensure logical flow of information
• Accessible publishing guidance to facilitate accessible document production 
• Stakeholder education and consulting for strategic guidance 

The remediation workflow and consulting process deployed Word Wizards’ SMEs to achieve full compliance with all requirements using a structured quality assurance process. Ultimately, Word Wizards has helped to elevate the Berkeley compliance portfolio and the university now delivers a superior user experience for persons with disabilities at scale.

Client Spotlight

Departments served through the engagement included the Labor Occupational Health Program, Greater Good Science Center, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, Haas School of Business, and additional academic and administrative units.

Projects ranged from policy reports and workplace safety materials to multimedia publications, toolkits, research papers, and academic presentations.

Word Wizards also advised departments on improving accessibility during the source-document creation process, including InDesign export practices, chart accessibility, and color contrast considerations.

Implementation & Delivery Approach

Rather than relying on a centralized campus-wide procurement structure, the engagement expanded organically through departmental trust and peer referrals.

Each engagement followed a consistent remediation and consulting workflow while allowing departments to engage independently based on their own timelines and publishing needs.

The partnership emphasized responsiveness, practical guidance, and operational collaboration with designers, researchers, communications staff, and administrators.

Why It Matters for Public Institutions

UC Berkeley highlights how large research institutions can build sustainable accessibility capacity across independently managed departments through trusted service delivery, stakeholder education, and practical operational support.

For public institutions managing distributed publishing environments, combining remediation with hands-on accessibility guidance can improve both immediate compliance outcomes and long-term organizational maturity.