Use this link to share with your colleagues:
Online Accessibility Guidelines: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1690885
Most, if not all, of your patrons interact with your organization online frequently, whether they're checking out your website, making a donation, or purchasing tickets. It's a best practice to make sure your online content is accessible to everyone, regardless of ability. To help you better serve all your patrons, this article provides resources we've gathered about online accessibility. Specifically, we'll cover:
- What online accessibility is and why it matters
- How PatronManager approaches accessibility in our design process
- How you can make your PatronManager sites more accessible
- Online accessibility resources
What is online accessibility, and why does it matter?
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed guidelines with the goal of ensuring websites are as accessible for folks who need various accommodations as they are for those who don't require accommodations. As the W3C's Introduction to Web Accessibility states,
"The Web is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of life: education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, and more. It is essential that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with diverse abilities."
How PatronManager approaches accessibility
At PatronManager, we take accessibility seriously. We build accessibility checks into our development process for new features, particularly for patron-facing functionality, and we aim for compliance with WCAG 2 Level AA wherever possible. We validate and test accessibility with live user auditing, and also employ industry-standard accessibility testing tools.
Keep in mind that some aspects of accessibility require attention from your side as well: for example, providing alt text for images, ensuring that any links you add clearly identify their purpose in the link text, and observing color contrast warnings in the Theme Builder are up to you. Read on for more information.
How can I make my PatronManager sites more accessible?
Let's take a look at a couple areas in PatronManager where you have the agency to improve your sites' online accessibility.
Color Contrast
PatronManager helps you maintain good color contrast to keep your Public Ticketing Site site as accessible as possible. We evaluate color contrast based on accessibility guidelines for you in the Theme Builder.
In the below example, there isn't enough contrast between the two theme colors we've chosen. The error message provides guidance on what to do to make sure the brand colors are readable.
When we change Brand color 1 to a lighter color, the error message disappears. Hooray - you've just made your site much more visually accessible!
Alternative Text for Images
Alternative Text (or Alt text) is an image description that appears when the image isn't visible on a web page for some reason, and it's also used to describe the image to folks who use screen-reading tools.
You can utilize Alternative Text via the Image Description field when adding images to rich text fields.
Online accessibility resources
To learn more about online accessibility guidelines, including color contrast, we recommend the following resources:
- Introduction to Web Accessibility
-
"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)"
- While you're at it, check out W3C's website
- Check colors using the WCAG ColorChecker
- Americans for the Arts Web Accessibility Statement
Interested in learning more about how to make the seating experience in your venue more accessible too? Head over to How to Handle ADA (Accessible and Companion) Seating in your Venue for more information, and to see which PatronManager tools can help you do that.