SRH University Achieves Accessibility Compliance with AI-Powered Alt-Texts

SRH University is a private higher education institute with 18 locations across Germany. Part of the SRH group, which specializes in providing healthcare and education services, SRH University of Applied Sciences Heidelberg supports more than 9,500 students across over 200 competency-based degree programs, playing an active role in shaping academic life in Germany. 

With the passing of Germany’s Accessibility Improvement Act, a law that sets new standards for digital accessibility, the University turned to their longtime partner, b13, to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to accessibility regulations, and create an accessible and inclusive website.

Accessibility is becoming an increasingly important issue for businesses, public sector organizations, and non-profits alike. Germany recently passed the Accessibility Improvement Act, which aims to ensure all products and services are accessible to people with disabilities, with digital services and websites being required to meet accessibility standards. The law came into effect in June 2025, meaning that institutions like SRH would need to adhere to more comprehensive accessibility regulations.

In the case of SRH University, this meant working to add descriptive text to over 15,000 images on its website in time. These photos included everything from faculty headshots to decorative graphics. 

With the deadline fast approaching, and with little time to waste, the University turned to their longstanding partners b13 to collaborate with them on this project. SRH University and b13 have worked together for eight years in what SRH University’s Manager Christoph Möckel describes as a “trusting, constructive, and pragmatic” partnership.

With efficiency being central to being able to meet the project’s demands, namely its tight deadline, b13 had exactly the solution that would benefit their client. The agency’s Descriptive Images tool allows end users to easily apply alt texts to all of their images, ensuring that media hosted on their website is compliant with the latest accessibility standards. 

The solution was implemented directly into SRH University’s existing TYPO3 instance through an API integration, fitting seamlessly into SRH’s existing workflow. Editors are now able to access and manage alt-text descriptions through the same interface they already use for all of their other content.

“First, they [b13] worked closely with us to clarify exactly what needed to be done. They thoroughly reviewed everything and then presented clear solution concepts. b13 also estimated the effort in hours, providing a solid budget framework to ensure it didn’t get out of hand.” – Christoph Möckel, SRH University

Future Proofing Accessibility Compliance

One of the primary benefits of the accessibility tool is that it ensures long-term compliance with accessibility requirements. This future-proofed process doesn’t only cover existing images, but it automatically generates alt-texts for any new image uploaded to the system, with both English and German being covered languages. 

That makes compliance part of the University’s editors’ daily processes and not an additional burden they need to devote time and resources to keep up to date. 

With regards to the results and impact of the tool’s implementation, the results speak for themselves. As the June 28, 2025 accessibility deadline arrived, the SRH University team was in possession of a fully compliant frontend and image set.

The automated, AI-powered alt-text tool enabled the team to save time, resources, and ensure that the University website met the latest, and future, accessibility standards. 

b13’s TYPO3 expertise and innovative solutions for a wide range of clients was crucial to the project’s success. As SRH noted: 

“The core of our collaboration is our trusting, constructive partnership with fast execution—and the fact that we prioritize together on equal terms,” Christoph summarizes. “The whole thing always leads to very pragmatic solutions that work for us as SRH University and for the editors and staff behind it, just as well as for the agency.”

Accessibility is an increasingly important topic for businesses and organizations across industries. We’ve covered accessibility related issues in multiple content pieces, along with at our most recent T3CON. 

Stay in touch with TYPO3 for more accessibility related content, coming soon.

Learn how TYPO3 keeps its users ahead of the curve when it comes to accessibility solutions, and enables organizations to deliver sublime digital experiences. 

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