Accessibility affects everyone—whether it’s access to transportation, people, or information.

For Full Sail graduate Emily Wray, her current position as a Webmaster for the State of Florida means making electronic information more readily available to everyone, including individuals with disabilities.

“A lot of times, people think that a person with an impairment can’t do this or that, but with technology today, most people can do just about anything,” Emily says. “Technology provides the tools and it’s my responsibility to provide information in an accessible format.”

Currently living in Florida’s capital city of Tallahassee, Emily is responsible for the training, development, and implementation of the state’s Section 508 accessibility Web standards. It requires that individuals with disabilities have equal opportunity and ease of access to government information and services. Emily and government employees work hard to make the state’s documents and Web sites tactically designed and universally available for everyone.

“As part of my job as Webmaster, I sit on the Technology Accessibility for All Floridians Committee. It is an inter-agency group of webmasters, IT people, and communications folks who get together and take a look at how you make information accessible to the widest possible audience,” Emily says. 

“Given new technology, [we discuss] how to make the same info—available in one format—able to convert to… let’s say an iPhone format. And then we go even further, examining how that same info could be available via a screen reader for someone with a visual impairment.”

The information that Emily modifies includes Web sites, emails, and documents like Microsoft Word. Emily points out the different types of tricks she employs to make a Web page more accessible.

“It can be as simple as having an alt tag on an image in a Web page,” Emily says. “When you put in that alt text, let’s say that image didn’t display or took a long time to load. Now there’s this description tag that says where the Full Sail logo is supposed to be. So, you know what’s supposed to be there even if it never loads.”

Also, those with visual impairments often use a screen reader that is a text-to-speech converter and reads them what information is embedded in the page. To ensure the site and screen reader accurately relay information, Emily utilizes “descriptions on images so when a person with a disability comes across [them], they know there is a logo in the shape of a plane, for example. Then, they will have some idea of what the Full Sail logo is.”

Working in a government administration industry means Emily can be on the pulse of developments in legislation and can be a positive facilitator of that change.

Emily also enjoys freelancing and volunteering within the local community.

“One of things I get the most enjoyment out of is working with small businesses here in town. And I like it because I can go in and make a difference and see the difference immediately,” Emily says. “I get a lot of satisfaction out of being able to do that here for the local community… It really makes me feel tied to where I live.”

Reflecting upon her long journey throughout her education and career, Emily feels “like I’ve definitely landed where I should be.”

“It’s just about opening your eyes to a more universal design aspect. While you might be able to present something and make it look ultra cool, if the info isn’t accessible to someone…is it worth having it look great if they can’t get the information that they need?”