The target audience of GAAD is the design, development, usability,
and related communities who build, shape, fund and influence technology
and its use. While people may be interested in the topic of making
technology accessible and usable by persons with disabilities, the
reality is that they often do not know how or where to start. Awareness
comes first. Read the
blog post by Joe Devon that inspired GAAD.
Learn more about
On May 15
Whether you participate in an organized activity with others or not, join us and take an hour out of your day to
experience digital accessibility first-hand.
Contribute Directly To The Digital Accessibility Effort
Karen Mardahl in Denmark
has suggested the following additional ideas for designers,
developers, and others to take on as part of the day. These will
help directly to improving the accessibility of the web and to spreading
awareness.
- Caption a video - at least prepare a transcript. If it is not
your video, send the transcript to the owner and suggest that they
follow the information provided by Google for YouTube or 3Play Media for Vimeo to add captions.
- Write a blog post on what digital accessibility awareness is and what your (the writer's) ideas are for raising that awareness.
- Create a video demonstrating how you use some type of assistive technology and upload it to YouTube.
Additionally:
- there are a number of free toolbars that can help designers
and developers to test the accessibility of their pages. One of these is
WAVE - Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool from the folks at WebAIM.
- Why not run this toolbar on a page or pages you have developed
and see how accessible these are to your visitors, including those with
different disabilities. Take the results and implement the suggested
changes.
More Ideas
- Publish a blog post on or before May 15, including background
on GAAD and your organization/company’s commitment to digital
accessibility.
- If you are a web design, usability, web development, digital
agency, digital accessibility or related firm, send an e-mail to your
clients on or before May 15 to let them know that May 15 is Global
Accessibility Awareness Day, with a link to www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org, drawing attention to how your firm supports accessibility through services or education.
- Announce a digital accessibility-related initiative on May
15, using the occasion of Global Accessibility Awareness Day to do this.
- Identify and contact local Meetup or other
associations/organizations of developers/designers (web, mobile, other
tech), usability and other associated IT professionals and let them know
May 15 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and ask them to inform
their memberships.
- Let your favorite tech publication or better yet, reporter or
columnist know that May 15 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and
encourage them to cover the event.
- Send an internal e-mail (e.g., to your IT staff, web
development team, anyone involved in technology decision-making)
informing them that May 15 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day,
discuss any accessibility initiatives that may be under way/remind staff
of any technology accessibility policy that may exist and the role
everyone plays in its success.
- Contribute your time to projects such as Fix The Web
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