DesignHammer was pleased to once again support the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits by participating in the 2018 North Carolina Center for Nonprofits Conference. The annual conference delivers continuing education, inspiration, and support to Nonprofits from across North Carolina.
This year, David and I presented a session on website accessibility considerations for organizations, including what is website accessibility, the legal landscape regarding accessibility, and how to approach a website accessibility effort.
"Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web." Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
While many organizations are interested in the concept of having an accessible website, they often do not understand the holistic nature of creating and maintaining an accessible website.
Unfortunately, accessibility is not a "checkbox" that web developers check during website development. In our experience, accessibility must be a team effort between between a web team and the content creators. Websites must be designed and developed to be accessible to users with disabilities and, to do that, content must also be accessible (e.g. captioning, transcripts, text alternatives, etc.).
Once a website (and its content) is accessible to users with disabilities, a commitment to accessibility does not end. Accessibility must be included not only in website updates, but also as part of the content creation and editing workflow.
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