Our Director of Technology has embarked on a project to develop a Web site accessible to people with intellectual / cognitive disabilities. View the latest blog posts about this project.
What we do:
We help clients design Web sites that are accessible to people with disabilities, especially to people who are blind. To ensure the accessibility of a Web site, the best procedure is to incorporate accessible features as the site is being designed, rather than designing a site then modifying it for accessibility. We provide the education, the training and the design work to make this happen.
We also review clients' existing Web sites to ensure they are accessible. For instance, people who are blind need textual descriptions of all graphics. We check Web sites for significant problems with accessibility, as well as for those that are easy to fix. We then produce reports, and/or fix the problems, and/or provide staff training on how to fix and avoid them.
Why we do it:
There are millions of people with disabilities. Many of these people have disabilities that make using the Web difficult. Commercial Web sites do themselves a disservice by excluding these people from being customers. Nonprofit agencies with inaccessible Web sites often exclude the very consumers they are trying to reach. Web sites should be accessible by all people. Basic Web site redesign can make a site useable by anyone.
Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act requires accessibility for all Web sites, databases and other software used by organizations that receive federal dollars, whether that be through grants or through the procurement of an organization's products.
How we do it:
Following the W3C accessibility standards:
Distance-Learning Course Development
Technology Readiness Evaluation
New England INDEX is part of the Shriver Center, a division of the
University of Massachusetts Medical School.
This is an Official Page/Publication of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
