Developing Accessible Website for Ann Arbor Center for independent Living (AACIL)

Aim: Redesign the old website of AACIL using CMS to make it accessible.

Duration: 4 months (Winter 2010 | Michigan, US)

Collaborators: Bryan Klausmeyer, Kevin Chang, Nathan Yu, Helen Ledgard

Methods Used: WCAG validation, Code validation, Manual Check of each guideline, Persona Creation, Scenario Analysis, Heuristic Evaluation, Contextual Inquiry, Usability Testing, Personal Interviews, Comparative Analysis.

Download Accessibility Report: Available here

Project Brief: The organization wanted to come up with a website using the latest web technology and yet accessible by all it’s users without any problems. The previous website of the organization (aacil.org) was not accessible and so many needful people were not getting benefitted with it. The employees of the organization were also in need of an accessible website and so they wanted something robust, simple, usable, elegant and accessible.

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.

My Responsibilities: I was the web accessibility and usability expert in the team, and was responsible for making all the decisions in that domain. I took care that the website complies with the WCAG 1.0 and have valid XML and CSS. We strived for WCAG 2.0, but due to lack of stable online validation tool, we settled at WCAG 1.0. But on testing it with beta online validators for WCAG 2.0, we got really impressive results with more than 95% approval.

Following is the screenshot of the homepage of original website [aacil.org]



As mentioned in WCAG 2.0, “Note that even content that conforms at the highest level (AAA) will not be accessible to individuals with all types, degrees, or combinations of disability, particularly in the cognitive language and learning areas.” This should always be kept in mind while assessing the success or failure of this project. Ideally, no single design could be considered as Universal Design, but the Universal Design is something that caters to the requirements of the majority of needs.

Following is the screenshot of the homepage of newly designed website [annarborcil.org]

Detail about the accessibility aspect of the project is available here: Annarborcil.org/accessibility

Deliverables: We delivered an accessible website that has AAA conformance, valid CSS3, valid XHTML 1.0 transitional, and has Section 508 Compliance. Try it out!

A detailed project report about the accessibility section could be downloaded here.