Accessibility

As a group of people who make tools, tell stories, and bring ideas to life we understand the decisions we make about the way we build things have knock-on effects that we may never experience ourselves.

Accessibility, sometimes referred to online as a11y, is a broad term that asks the question: can everyone access your website and the information therein? That means people using screen-readers, braille displays, and any number of assistive devices such as mechanical switches need to be able to navigate your site. For us, it also includes performance: can someone on a rural internet connection load your site in a reasonable time? Can a person with and older device who can’t afford device upgrades use your site in a meaningful way?

We take an active role so that accessibility isn’t a compliance issue but instead is a design choice. You can approach accessibility in two ways: as a compliance issue—ensuring you pass automated tests to help cover you in the fuzzy world of online ADA legality—or as a user experience issue: some people will be on mobile devices, some on desktop, others using assistive devices; our job is to ensure those are all high-quality experiences.

While there’s no panacea for creating accessible websites, we believe an active and adaptive approach is the only way to make the web a better, more empathetic place. If you experience any problems while navigating our website or any website we’ve built, please reach out to us; there’s no feedback more valuable than that of someone requiring assistive technologies on a regular basis.

All of that being said: goals are important and we’re following the footsteps of giants. The W3C, who describes themselves as

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. … W3C's mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.

..has a number of guidelines that set high expectations for designers and developers; currently we conform as best we can to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0/2.1 level “A” success criteria.