KISS
As we (CCDC) continue to grow and become more involved in our local communities, we need to make sure that we keep all of our materials and documents accessible. This can be a huge challenge because many of mainstream providers of online payment portals, online photo galleries, online surveys, evites, social networks and other networking tools are in fact, not always accessible.
Here is a short but very informative video on the frustrations that people with various disabilities have with the internet and lack of accessibility. This is great for perspective. I love this video!
Here are some helpful tips to keep your communications compliant:
- When in doubt, KISS. Keep It Simple Sweetheart! Design with accessibility in mind – functionality first and then form. Every element of your evite, webpage or document should be enjoyable to everyone. Don’t include sound unless you can provide a verbatim caption, don’t include graphics unless you can include reasonable and accurate alt text.
- Be prepared to offer an alternate format. Don’t include tables or columns in your design unless you are willing to provide a secondary accessible format. (Screen readers hate tables and columns!) While this is not the preferred method of creating accessibility, if you cannot provide 100% accessibility within your primary document or website, you will need to offer a secondary alternate format. This method of providing a secondary format is generally not viewed as best practice for electronic communications. As a representative of CCDC all of your communtions should be designed with accessibility in mind from the get go.
- Run an accessibility tool on any webpage page that you are sending your end users to. There are a number of free tools available to assess the accessibility of the page you are sending people to: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete. My personal favorite is WAVE, which can be found athttp://wave.webaim.org/ .
- Just because it is a PDF doesn’t make it accessible! Here is a great article on creating accessible PDF’s: http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?2 . The best rule of thumb is still to provide a primary HTML version of any PDF that you post or distribute.
- If you are designing for print be prepared to offer a version of your document with various type sizes, or an audio version. Many people with low vision or other impairments require text that is a minimum of 16pts or larger.
