In an effort to learn about ways to make websites more accessible to all, I had a conversation with Jonathan Green, Communications Specialist with the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) recently. Thank you to Jonathan for taking the time to share his knowledge.
His advice was very helpful with respect to being mindful about the difficulties some may experience looking at the internet or participating in webinars.
Here are questions to consider and resources Green recommended as we strive to improve the accessibility of our sites:
- Are you adding descriptions to any images you include on your website? Doing so regularly will allow those who cannot see the images to get an idea of what is on the page – it’s a simple step that can be implemented as regular practice.
- How is your site’s color contrast? This was a great reminder that colorblindness may pose a problem for people while they look at websites. This color contrast checker is one way to attend to it.
- When providing data through tables, insert the table itself, instead of an image of the table for readers to get a better understanding of its contents.
- Green recommends while those three steps are simple things that can be practiced regularly, website accessibility evaluation tools are the best way to initiate assessing what needs to be improved on your website. Some examples of such tools are:
- WAVE – Web accessibility evaluation tool
- Functional Accessibility Evaluator 1.1
- If you can, ask your audience what accommodations they require. Once you are aware of those, you can better adapt your site to meet user needs. When in doubt or catering to a large audience, it is best to at least provide an alternative to what your site provides (i.e. transcripts for webinars).
In the interest of improving this and other West Wind managed sites, please let us know if there other disabilities or tools that we should know about by sharing in the comment box below or by contacting us here. We will continue working to make our sites accessible to all users and we appreciate your input into this ongoing process.