Are your association’s digital products, services, and experiences accessible to your external audiences? Many associations see digital accessibility as a nice to have but not a priority for the moment. What about inclusion? Is that a priority?
Here’s something you may not have considered: accessibility is inclusion. But unfortunately, accessibility is the missing component of most diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) plans. That’s a huge oversight considering 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. has some type of disability. When your association prioritizes digital accessibility, you open up your programs to more people and enhance the user experience for everyone.
How can you improve digital accessibility? Start by assessing whether your existing technology includes the functionality we describe below. Then, make sure these system requirements are “must-haves” when selecting new technology.
Importance of digital accessibility
The journey toward inclusion begins with evaluating the accessibility provided by the underlying technology behind your association’s digital products, services, and experiences, including your:
- Content Management System (CMS)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software or Association Management System (AMS)
- Online community
- Learning Management System (LMS)
- Job board or career center
- Virtual event platform
- Online meeting/web conferencing platform
Accessibility is relevant to almost every part of your association’s online presence. It’s imperative that each member can access your resources and benefits, attend your events, navigate your website, and have consistent, positive experiences every time they interact with your organization. In addition to enhancing member experiences, prioritizing accessibility can:
- Address ethical considerations, promote inclusivity, and foster trust and credibility
- Offer vital business benefits such as increased reach, engagement, innovation, and adaptability
- Help associations meet legal requirements and best practices
Associations may also experience the curb-cut effect, the phenomenon of disability-friendly features being used and appreciated by those outside of the group those features are intended for. In other words, accessibility tends to benefit everyone.
Components of an accessible website and member portal
When building or enhancing a website, find a website partner who follows Universal Design principles. These principles advocate for a sustainable approach to website design that provides inclusive digital experiences for everyone.
Get familiar with the accessibility potential of popular content management systems like Drupal or WordPress together with accessibility forward plugins and modules, and online membership communities such as Salesforce or Fonteva. These providers are making the necessary advancements toward equitable and accessible digital experiences, highlighting the features and improvements other software providers should offer.
Accessible websites and communities offer superior experiences that will help you build a loyal audience. The key elements of an accessible member experiences include:
- Site navigation and form completion using only a keyboard or screen reader
- Contextual links with descriptive anchor text
- Optimized color contrast between text and the background
- Captioned videos
- Image alternative text that centers the user that is not only focused on search engine optimization (SEO)
- Documented website design organization, including page titles, headings, and a clear sitemap
- Accessible forms for registration, membership, renewal, certification, licensure, volunteer interest, and purchases
We’ll explore ways your organization can evaluate its web accessibility later in this guide.
Key WCAG updates
WCAG 2.2 was released in October 2023. This update introduced a new set of criteria for web accessibility, each focusing on improving accessibility and experiences for those with vision impairments as well as cognitive, learning, and motor disabilities.
Additionally, there is an emphasis on optimizing experiences for users navigating websites via touchscreens—for instance, if the website requires a dragging motion, you must offer an alternative means of dragging. Explore what’s new in WCAG 2.2 to see the full list of updates and tactical next steps.
Accessible virtual events
Virtual events can be highly beneficial. People who can’t attend in-person events can now participate in the conference experience. However, virtual conference experiences often fall short of expectations for attendees with disabilities.
Your association can provide equitable, positive experiences for all by:
- Making sure your virtual event is inclusive from the start. During the registration process, ask for accommodation requests, which could include attendees’ needs for captions, sign language interpreters, or alternative media (tagged PDF, Braille, and audio descriptions for videos).
- Providing guidance (or requirements) for font size and color contrast in presentations. If you have requests for alternative media, get session materials from speakers in advance so you can make those enhancements in time for the event.
- Using visual cues. Your platform must provide disabled attendees the same ability as other attendees. Require captions on all pre-recorded and on-demand videos, including anything speakers play during their sessions. Identify session or panel speakers with on-screen captions, especially when there are multiple speakers. Similarly, write out questions for polls or from chat logs on screen rather than just reading them.
- Providing accurate captions. Live captions (Communication Access Realtime Translation, or CART) are created by a live captioning team and are the most accurate and ideal for educational, medical, or legal content. Automated, AI-powered captions—or, as accessibility professionals call them, “craptions”—are notorious for accuracy issues.
- Offering closed captions. Closed captions are a better option than open captions. The viewer can’t adjust open captions, but they can turn closed captions on or off and adjust their location and display format.
Many of these practices will also enhance experiences for users without disabilities and association staff. For example, captions allow associations to scan the transcript for keywords, making it easier to find session content to repurpose for marketing or educational needs.
Budget for these accommodation expenses in the early stages of event planning. Include these functionalities in your requirements for virtual event platforms, and ask to see a demonstration of them in action before you sign a contract.
Virtual governance, volunteering, and online education
Every member should have the same opportunity to volunteer for their association—one of the most transformational benefits of membership. Likewise, all members and prospective learners should have the same access to online education via webinars, online courses, and other educational programs. A disability should not limit their participation.
To expand these opportunities to all members, find out what you don’t know about accessibility. Don’t worry if you discover you have much to learn; you can find many helpful resources online. Disability:IN, a nonprofit resource for disability inclusion in business, offers an extensive library of accessibility resources.
Evaluate your association’s digital accessibility
While your association’s website is the main focus of your accessibility efforts, you should consider accessibility for all resources, content, or meetings.
As you work, evaluate accessibility with resources like:
- This interactive Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) checklist which can measure your website’s accessibility.
- Accessibility checkers for your Microsoft documents and Adobe PDFs that ensure any resources you share offer equitable access.
- This resource on website components with details on how to make them accessible.
- A color contrast checker that ensures adequate contrast between text and background colors for those with color blindness, low vision, and other disabilities.
- Webpage improvement tools like Google Lighthouse that highlight the areas of your pages that need the most improvement.
- A CRM like Salesforce that prioritizes accessibility and offers accessible interfaces out of the box.
- A skilled digital services team with the knowledge and expertise to facilitate accessibility-first web design and development as well as review existing solutions through the lens of accessibility.
Keep accessibility in mind at the beginning of each new project. Retrofitting solutions with accessibility features after creating them is a much bigger lift.
Accessibility is inclusion
Implement inclusive accessibility practices that benefit everyone by enhancing the user experience on your website, in your community, and at your gatherings. Start by building inclusive design into your processes and standard operating procedures rather than adding them later.
Apply the four principles of accessibility, also called the POUR Principle:
- Perceivable: Users must be able to perceive information using their senses. Avoid information that appeals to only one of the five senses, as it may be invisible to some users (e.g., an image with no alternative text).
- Operable: All users should be able to operate and navigate the system, meaning that operation should not require any actions all users cannot perform.
- Understandable: The user should be able to understand the information presented. Ensure that the information and operation are not beyond your audience’s understanding.
- Robust: Content should be robust enough to be interpreted by assistive technologies and other user agents without losing or changing meaning.
Meeting all of these criteria will ensure users with disabilities can access and engage with your communications, products, services, events, education, meetings, and volunteer experiences.
Wrapping up
Your goal shouldn’t be to comply with ADA, says Samantha Evans, CAE, certification manager at the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. ADA compliance is the bare minimum. Inclusion goes beyond compliance.
Instead, accessibility and people with disabilities must be an integral part of your association’s DEI statements and action plan. Caroline Casey, founder of The Valuable 500, says, “If disability is not on your board agenda, neither is diversity. Nor is innovation, productivity, brand experience, talent, risk, reputation…” So rather than limiting your association’s growth, expand and lead exciting changes in the space by embracing diversity and accessibility.
If your organization is ready to build an accessible digital presence, please contact us to learn how Fíonta can help.