Every citizen has the right to an accessible government. With this, the State of Minnesota joins a worldwide effort in celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a day to get people thinking and talking about digital (web, software, mobile) accessibility and users with different disabilities.

Today the Office of Accessibility, a program of MN.IT Services, is sponsoring an effort to help government employees become aware and take ownership of their role in creating accessible content. Experts will be available throughout various state agencies to show how to produce information that anyone can understand and use. This is important because about 10 percent of Minnesotans have a disability, which can make it difficult for them to access content on the internet.

One way the Office is promoting awareness is through the No Mouse Challenge, which encourages workers to perform their jobs for 15 minutes on the computer without using a mouse. Using keyboard-only commands is a good, quick accessibility test. If a document, application or system cannot support mouseless operation, it may not support assistive technology or accessibility tools.

Accessible content is not just useful for those with disabilities. For example, a captioned video may allow an employee to watch without disturbing co-workers, printing graphs in black and white helps those who are colorblind and saves money, and accessible web content loads faster on mobile devices.

For more information about the Office of Accessibility and accessible content, visit the MN.IT Services website at http://mn.gov/mnit/accessibility/.