Viewing Accessibility in a New Light
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 at 11:30am -- Penny Harding
While at HighEdWeb, I became very interested in the accessibility conversation that was happening around me. I managed to attend a couple of sessions during the conference by John Krzesicki of deque Systems, Inc. and Jon Gunderson of University of Illinois. These sessions were really informative and got me thinking a lot about how Cascade CMS could further enable our users to be up-to-date on the latest standards. Not just the 504, 508, and ADA standards but the new and resounding rules that are coming out of law suits, especially in Higher Education.
I think the most interesting observation for me was that accessibility used to be about ensuring the same level of access to health and safety information for people with disabilities as for those without. Now it is about making sure that those students are able to accomplish the same tasks, no matter how big or seemingly minute, as students without disabilities--whether it’s registering for a course, finding out when the next campus event is, or simply finding out the dining hall hours. Accessibility for the web has become a lot more about allowing the same access to ALL information not just some information. Accessibility is easy to pass over when you are someone who has never had to think about it. This past week, my conversations with people at HighEdWeb really got me thinking about accessibility in a way that I hadn't previously considered.
I am glad to say that Cascade Server CMS has had a native accessibility checker for a long time. We have enabled our business users to make sure their content is accessible before pushing it to their web server. I plan on utilizing the information that I have brought back from HighEdWeb to enable our company as a whole to be more aggressive with accessibility and to enable our users to be in the know as to the whys and hows of making their sites more accessible--for PCs and laptops, mobile devices, notebooks, iPads, and whatever new flashy devices pop up in store down the road tomorrow.
What does accessibility mean to you? In what ways have you had to redefine your understanding of accessibility to meet the increasing standards?
You Might Also Enjoy
- Maintaining an Accessible Website with a CMS
- HighEdWeb 2011: Why (Quality) Content is King & Accessibility is Key
Category
- Commentary