PRESENTERS: Joel H Crawford-Smith
DEPARTMENTS: Duke Web Services
FORMAT: Presentation (topical discussion followed by questions)
ABSTRACT:
Become part of making the web better for all people everywhere, and reap the
benefits! The web is fundamentally designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, culture, location, or physical or mental ability. When the web meets this goal, it is accessible to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive abilities. The goal of this session is to explain the fundamentals of web accessibility and the deluge of unexpected benefits it provides. Improved accessibility always leads to better SEO, better content and a better user experience on all devices. This session will explain the concepts around web accessibility, 508 compliance, and WCAG compliance. Participants will be armed with a list of resources for testing and improving their sites. This session will share easy changes that content editors can make today to improve a site’s level of accessibility, as well as review simple requests you can make from your developers to improve compliance. It will help you win friends and influence people by knowing all the buzzwords for talking people out of bad ideas, which will be especially helpful as you start your next site redesign. The primary audience for this session includes: content editors, designers, developers, marketers, teachers, faculty, and anyone who has influence over a website.
