Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2018

Do you produce any digital content that is consumed by other humans? (I’m guessing yes.) You should, if you don’t already, consider how you can make it more universally usable! If you work for a university, you are likely already required to adhere to these standards or something similar. There are a lot of design techniques and standards in place to help make all sorts of digital content types accessible to people with a great diversity of abilities and disabilities. Earlier this month, I attended some presentations at the University of Washington as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). Every year there are TONS of events all over the world for GAAD, in-person and online, on the topic of accessibility. This year at the University of Washington, Janelle Raven Apigo showcased various freely available tools which can help you make your websites more accessible: AInspector, WAVE Accessibility Checker, Web Developer Toolbar, and a color contrast checker. Photo credit: Elizabeth O Lee, DO-IT UW A little later, K Wheeler and Shawn Berg demonstrated the user experience for some of their preferred assistive technologies, including a built-in iPhone feature called “Speak Screen” and a popular screen reader software called “JAWS.” If you have never seen an assistive technology demo—jump at the chance next time you get one! It is very elucidating as to why accessibility is so important, when you hear what a garbled mess it is when screen reader softwa...
Source: Dragonfly - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Accessibility Blog Technology Source Type: news