In general, accessibility enables any web user, regardless of ability or disability, to interact with a website without undue difficulty. Cornell University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center for Economic Research on Employment Policy for Persons with Disabilities estimates that nearly 8% of the working population (ages 25-61) has some level of disability.
For abled users, the accessibility enhancements in our application are not noticeable. For those using adaptive tools like screen readers, the enhancements will provide a better user experience.
Accessibility compliance is the law — and it’s the right thing to do. At GradLeaders, we’re trying to remove barriers to using our application and reduce the risk of legal problems our partner schools may face by using technology that is not compliant.
Accessibility matters to the nearly 20% of undergraduate students and 12% of post-baccalaureate students in the United States who are disabled. View our infographic to better understand the disabled student population.
Familiarize yourself with your university’s office of accessibility to learn about your institution’s standards and commitment to compliance, much like these institutions:
The developers at GradLeaders have done most of the heavy lifting to make your application compliant. To maintain compliance, be sure any custom content you’re adding to widgets or HTML content boxes is also compliant. Here are some tips:
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and state law require that organizations that receive state or federal funding provide reasonable access to all services. Section 508 is the guideline for making web-based services accessible.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international non-profit whose mission is to develop web standards. Any organization can choose to adopt their standards. Being a non-governmental agency, they tend to keep up with emerging development methodologies a little better. Their accessibility-specific guidelines are known as Web Content Accessibility Guideline, or WCAG.
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