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Hi @anon14140932, thanks for bringing up this important topic.
It has been in my mind at times; unfortunately the technology we are using does not make it super easy to make the site accessible, but it is important and we need to figure something out for that in the long term.
Would you be interested in helping us with this? I’ve tried using a screen reader in the past; but it really requires someone who uses one regularly to really know how the site should be laid out for that?
I am not sure what resources we have to work on this right now, but I’m sure there are easy gains to be made with a little bit of work.
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unfortunately the technology we are using does not make it super easy to make the site accessible
That’s not entirely true! We should be able to make it accessible.
We have been putting effort into using aria labels etc. Recently I have been checking the accessibility tree here and there when I’m making changes. I wonder if the parts where it are not good are the ones we did earliest when we were being quite lax? Messaging and login are certainly amongst the first things we did.
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Hi everyone - I actually wanted to make a new topic about this, but thanks to the “Your topic sounds similar to…” feature, I found this thread.
I think that making the site accessible should be of high priority, but a lot of us here aren’t as knowledgeable about the best ways to do that. Does anyone in this community (or among the volunteers) have ideas about how to make Couchers.org more accessible?
The only thing I have to contribute for now is a video that a colleague shared with me some weeks ago (the part between 5:30-42:00 in particular): USF Muma College of Business Certificate: Session 4: Future of Your ORG Through D&I - YouTube - it tells the story about how Microsoft transitioned into more rigorously training its employees and forming its software for accessibility. Of course, Microsoft has many more resources than a non-profit like Couchers. But perhaps we can start by listening to people who need accommodations to access the site and work from there?
Edit: also - I know that the design team has already put some consideration about accessibility (e.g. in color scheme), so maybe someone from that team could tell us what our starting point is?
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Since in the EU it is already mandated that public administration websites are accessible for everyone, there is a load of information on the topic.
For example the German website with tips & tricks, checklists and stuff: https://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/umsetzen/
There are also the international standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, I guess you should be able to find similar help pages in English (I don’t know any right off the bat, unfortunately).
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