Web accessibility awareness is the key. Insights into two WCAG events.
More and more WCAG related events are organized where web specialists may find out the importance of making websites more accessible for people with disabilities. The key is to understand the problem and realize the difficulties that visually or motor-impaired users of the Internet struggle with. I will mention two big WCAG events including the one we are proud of :)
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Global Accessibility Awareness Day - GAAD
Global Accessibility Awareness Day - GAAD - took place on 18th May 2017 and the event was focused on making the technology more accessible to people with different disabilities like visual, motor, cognitive or hearing impairment. The main deliberated topics and issues were the ways and solutions for website design, development, and usability for people who struggle with non-accessible websites.
Nowadays using web technologies is embedded in everyday life but usually enjoying Internet functionality and benefits is complicated for people with disabilities. That's why taking into account testers experiences and feedbacks will help us to create accessibility-ready websites and make impaired web users easy not only browse websites but use at everyday life.
How to follow WCAG recommendations for making web content more accessible in WordPress theme.
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We do not realize how many how much we may do via websites like paying bills, using social media, shopping - read the following issues that you may experience if you had a disability:
cognitive impairment struggle with:
- a lot of patterns and flashing images
- problems with understanding questions for example at an online job application
- reading and understand e-mail messages without my personal assistant (PA) support.
visual impairment struggle with:
- filling in forms on the touch screen
- visual identification recognition when signing up to a website
- buttons not properly labeled
- tick boxes and drop-down menus navigation
visual and motor impairment struggle with:
- quick tap or swipe
- too many login pages
- texted or emailed secret code that needs to be entered
motor impairment struggle with:
- pushing more than one key - shortcuts
- time limitation to type something on the site
hearing impairment struggle with:
- a video where no script or close captioning
Our customer awarded at WCAG conference in Poland
A month earlier the other event took place at the Polish government called "Turn on the Digital. Accessibility ready e-services". The conference attendants talk about solutions to make e-services more accessible. More and more websites for public institutions meets WCAG requirements at AA level but still, there is a problem with meeting accessibility standards for e-services.
Every year, the specialist from the dedicated foundation in Poland monitor the level of WCAG standard usage for government websites, they check the websites WCAG compatibility and what is more, those websites are tested by people with disabilities, for example, they check how easy for them is browsing the website, find an information they are looking for, navigate menus, filling in contact form, search forms or use media items.
Moreover, every year WCAG experts from the conference award the best WCAG ready web sites that may be the best examples of website browsing without the difficulties.
We are proud to announce that one of our customers Pawel Starościak has been awarded for creating the best WCAG ready website for the non-public website with less than 100 pages. He created his website www.wcag.pl using one of WCAG WordPress themes created by PixelEmu team. Paweł Starosciak is a specialist at WCAG standards usage at websites and offers web services related with WCAG websites for small companies.
Photo: Magda Pawluczuk
Contest: Strona Internetowa bez Barier 2017
Conference: Włączenie Cyfrowe. Dostępne e-Usługi 2017
The WCAG theme used for the awarded website is Services WordPress theme with WCAG standards and compatibility. The theme has been tested o WCAG checkers and it's still beeing improved following the customers' reports.
