Human Rights in the Workplace blog aiming for web accessibility – what about you?

Published on July 15, 2010 by Donna Seale

As I’m one of those kind of gals who likes to practice what she preaches, when I started thinking about redesigning my blog one of the issues that was top-of-mind was ensuring that my site was as accessible to as many readers as possible. In other words, I wanted to be sure that just because you happen to have a disability or just because your abilities may be changing (due to aging, for example), you would not be limited, in any way, from understanding, interacting with or navigating the content on my site.

And so, for the past number of months I have embarked upon a quest to make my blog compliant with the Web Accessibility Initiative. I sought out the tremendous guidance of Glenda Watson-Hyatt, a passionate advocate for web accessibility and a gold mine of knowledge and experience on that very topic. In fact, Glenda has written an e-book on enhancing the accessibility of blogs (it’s free to download!) and has recently launched her Blog Accessibility Mastermind course in an effort to make the blogosphere accessible to everyone. As Glenda has interestingly brought to my attention:

“Do you know that people with disabilities account for $175 billion in discretionary spending power in the United States alone? These individuals, a significantly under-tapped market, regularly face barriers preventing them from participating fully online…..

Consider the following:

Much of the web is graphical. Individuals who are blind use text-to-speech screen readers, a technology requiring descriptive text for all and images. Are your graphics accompanied by alternative text?

Online video and audio is increasingly popular. Individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired cannot hear audio content.

Flashing ads are distracting and annoying to all. These ads — that onscreen flickering — are not merely irritating to individuals with epilepsy, they can trigger seizures.

These are only three of the many barriers to online activities for many people with disabilities.”

Armed with Glenda’s insights, I asked Doug Jasinski and his Skunkworks Creative Group team, the cracker-jack designers of my blog if they were up to the task of helping me meet my goal and they responded enthusiastically. And so….drum roll please….I am happy to announce that my blog is now on target to meet the latest in web accessibility guidelines.

You know what the interesting part is? It wasn’t at all difficult to incorporate the tweaks that needed to be made. And it wasn’t an overly expensive proposition either. Remember, after all, I’m just one gal operating a small business from Manitoba. If I can do it, well, then certainly others can. So, I’m going to stand on my teeny podium right now and put out a challenge to all of my readers to have a look at their own sites and blogs and see if they just can’t make these very same changes. Your own readers, employees and customers will thank you for it.

Even though I find all of this change exciting, I’m also keenly aware from what Glenda has taught me that making websites and blogs accessible is an ongoing process. Web technologies are always changing and “accessibility best practices” are continually being developed and discovered. So, while I’m proud that, along with some very key people, I’ve raised the standard of my blog’s design to its current point, I know that it will need to evolve along with the overall growth and development of the web.

And, with that in mind, I would like to invite any feedback you might have regarding any accessibility issues you may be having with my new design. Working together we can make this site a part of what I hope to see become an all-inclusive web.

[Image by Svilen Milev]

Categories: Best practices, Diversity, Web/Tech

Comments Off

Reaching out — the web 2.0 way

Published on December 11, 2008 by Donna Seale

Today's post takes a bit of a different turn than usual. I'm not going to talk about human rights law but, instead, I wanted to mention other ways that we can get to know one another.

In addition to writing this blog, which is my primary vehicle for engaging with people who might be interested in what I have to say (and, go figure, to that!), I'm also out and about the world-wide web in other ways too. In addition to human rights law and its impact on the workplace, one of my other great interests is technology and its impact on the legal profession and the practice of law. Particularly, I am intrigued about how web 2.0 or the recent trend of using the web for information sharing, collaboration and the creation of communities (social networking sites like Facebook, or professional networking sites like LinkedIn) will change how lawyers interact with their clients or potential clients now and into the future. Always wanting to stay ahead of the curve (or at least be on it!), I've decided to jump on the web 2.0 bandwagon and learn first-hand what it's all about.

So, in keeping with this, I thought I would share with you some of the other ways we can connect, engage with and learn about and learn from eachother:

Twitter: this is a micro-blogging and connecting tool. I use it as an easy way to share information and have informal discussions with people (you have to sign up to follow people) because you are limited to 140 characters. It also works in real time so the minute I see something I think is of interest to those who follow me, I can do a quick note on it and send out a link and they can access it right away. Sometimes what I'm reading doesn't merit a full blog post so I'll do a 'tweet' about the topic instead. Other times, what I'm finding of interest has nothing to do with workplace human rights and so I'll go to Twitter to share it instead. In still other cases I'm just sharing water cooler-type conversation with others. I will admit that Twitter takes some getting used to. Here's a video from Common Craft that explains Twitter simply. Twitter has been described as 'networking on steroids' and, from my experience, that's pretty darned accurate.
LinkedIn: This is a business oriented social networking site. Really, it allows people in business to connect with other people in business. Here's my profile. Membership is free and it's easy to join and create your own profile. Then, please let me know if you'd like to be a part of my professional network. Send me an invitation and I'll accept.
Facebook. This is a more informal way of networking and is the social networking tool I think most people have heard about. I'm on there too and would invite you to connect.