Saturday, December 9, 2017

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CONFERENCE ACCESSIBLE – AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!



WEBSITE

Your website should be accessible. This means that it can be used by people who have different abilities, and may rely on assistive technologies. The guidelines here would be to adhere to WCAG 2.0. This post isn’t about web accessibility, so I won’t go in depth about it. But here are a few things to consider:
·       Can you navigate your site using only the keyboard?
·       Can text be resized without losing information?
·       Are links easily identifiable?
·       Is the color contrast sufficient?
·       Do all informative images have alternate text?
·       Are labels associated with form inputs?
Consider this for all areas of your site including, but not limited to:
·       Information about the event
·       Information about the venue
·       Directions to the venue
·       Registration
·       Payment
·       Call for paper
·       Paper submission
·       Schedule
People need to be able to access the information and get registered.
A quick sidebar about call for papers – make sure to mention your desire to have talks about accessibility! It seems like a silly detail, but too often accessibility isn’t mentioned as a possible topic. Mention it, show you’re inclusive, and be pleasantly surprised by the topics you hadn’t considered that tie your event theme and accessibility together.
And a note on schedules published on the site. Schedules are often complex information delivered through one or several HTML data tables. Ensure that these tables are coded according to standards so assistive technologies can interact programmatically with them. This is especially true if you are running several streams in several rooms on different days.
How have you made your conference more accessible for all people?
If you are interested in learning more about Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) or how to make accessibility a natural part of your business through the application of Corporate Social Responsibility, please contact Sandra Broekhof @ 416-579-1035 orsandra_broekhof@sympatico.ca

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