TeamKinetic believe that everyone should be provided with equal opportunities when signing up for volunteering roles and that opportunities are made equally accessible to individuals with and without a disability by volunteer managers.
volunteers in a circle
Why is it important for volunteer managers to provide individuals with a disability the opportunity to have access to a variety of volunteering roles?
- People with a disability, want role models who understand their issues. Looking up to significant others, that also have a disability, inspires the next generation to want to get involved.
- Volunteering with or without a disability offers a real opportunity to enhance skills, build confidence, develop as a leader and gain work experience.
- Some of the finest friendships are made through volunteering, it provides a fantastic way to build relationships, reduce social isolation and create community.
Here at TeamKinetic, we think people with a disability or long-term illness should have access to as many choices and opportunities as non-disabled people. The TeamKinetic volunteer system allows volunteers to make informed decisions about the opportunities they wish to take advantage of.
But for individuals with a disability to be able to make these choices, first, we must have a website that they can use. Here are some of the considerations TeamKinetic has taken into account, to make sure it offers an accessible service that is useful to people with disabilities.
“The power of the Web is in its universality.
Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
Website accessibility is important. The number of people accessing the internet is now over 4 billion, more than half of the world population!
Everyone wants quick and simple navigation around the websites they visit. Therefore volunteer managers that recruit individuals with a disability, should provide the individual with ways they can access the organisation’s website and what opportunities the organisation provides.
TeamKinetic has worked hard to provide a simple to use navigation for volunteers, with fast search and useful filters. Our Focus design principals ensure we build with consistency and simplicity always in mind.
Across the sector, there is still a lack of awareness from volunteer managers in providing people with a disability full access to organisations websites. The reason we think for this is that many people have a limited understanding of how persons with disabilities use technology and therefore mistakenly consider it difficult and costly, or just don’t consider it at all.
W3C has some standards that all website developers should adhere to, these are…
Alternative text for images
Images should include equivalent alternative text (alt text) in the markup/code.
If alt text isn’t provided for images, the image information is inaccessible. For example, to people who cannot see and use a screen reader that reads aloud the information on a page, including the alt text for the visual image.
When equivalent alt text is provided, the information is available to people who are blind, as well as to people who turn off images. (for example, in areas with expensive or low bandwidth). It’s also available to technologies that cannot see images, such as search engines
Symantec Layout
We use ARIA tagging and symantic elements such as the NAV element to enclose our navigation menus so that text browsers can let the user know, and most importantly, give them the opportunity to skip areas they are not interested in. Can you imagine having to listen to every entry in an entire navigation menu everytime you opened a page!
Keyboard input
Some people cannot use a mouse, including many older users with limited fine motor control. An accessible website does not rely on the mouse; it makes all functionality available from a keyboard. Then people with disabilities can use assistive technologies that mimic the keyboard, such as speech input.
TeamKinetic can be fully navigated without the need for a mouse.
Most of the basics of accessibility are fairly easy to implement. However, if you are new to accessibility, it takes some time and effort to learn the common issues and solutions. Here are places to start:
- Accessibility Principles — introduces accessibility requirements and international standards.
- Easy Checks – A First Review — helps you start testing the accessibility of a web page and understand some common accessibility barriers.
- Tips for Getting Started — provides some basic considerations for designing, writing, and developing.
If you’re interested in finding out more about why volunteer managers should provide more accessibility and how it can be done then follow Neil Milliken Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion for Atos a Global IT company on Twitter. Or visit the AXSCHAT website to become part of the AXSCHAT community discussions.
TeamKinetic believe that everyone should be given equal opportunities and access to a variety of volunteering opportunities to choose from. We at TeamKinetic strive to provide volunteer management software that is fully inclusive and easy to use. If you have personal experience of using our sites with assistive technology we would love to hear how we can improve. For more information about us and what we do visit our website.
Leave a Reply