Our Journey to Web Content Accessibility

When does a website become an oversight? When it ignores the needs of differently-abled users. Recently there has been a slew of lawsuits against businesses claiming their websites aren’t accessible to all. In particular, the visually impaired can find their needs ignored. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) treats websites just like business premises, which means that disabled people need to have the same rights to access as anyone else. It’s been two weeks now since Cayuga Centers launched a new website to better benefit communities being served. That means making our site accessible to the visually impaired. Another of our groups served is the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities community, and we have a responsibility to them. We want to ensure that our new site is equality enjoyed by all. Working with our understanding of the Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.0, we are implementing updates to meet best practices. The easiest change we’re currently working on is adding alternative text to the images found across our site. Simultaneously we are revisiting the overall presentation of our site. Fixing the structure of content, correcting heading tags and ensuring content is presented in logical sequences. The journey to complete compliance will be a long one, but we are doing all we can now to ensure that content found on cayugacenters.org is accessible to all. Why not check out the site and tell us if you think it is open, easy to use, and accessible to all?