Introduction
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of an “Accessibility Statement,” don’t worry. It’s not a complicated thing, but it can be helpful in making sure that people with disabilities have equal access to your products, services, or business. In this post, I’ll explain what an Accessibility Statement is and why you should consider creating one for yourself!
By creating an accessibility statement, you can provide visibility into your accessibility efforts and encourage community feedback.
As an organization, you can use a statement to communicate your commitment to accessibility. It’s also a way to provide visibility into your accessibility efforts and encourage community feedback.
An accessibility statement is a document that describes how you plan on meeting the needs of people who have disabilities in order for them to access your products or services. You can create one when you’re starting work on a new project, or at any other time during development if you want additional feedback from the community on how well (or not) it will meet those needs.
Here are some tips for creating an accessible and effective policy:
An Accessibility Statement can help create support among all of your stakeholders by showing them you are committed to accessibility in all of your projects.
When you write an Accessibility Statement, you are creating a culture of accessibility in your organization. You’re showing all of your stakeholders (including employees and clients) that you are committed to including people with disabilities. In doing so, you build trust with them and show them that you have their best interests at heart.
Accessibility Statements can also be used as marketing materials that showcase your accessibility efforts—both current and past. By showcasing these efforts, they show potential customers or investors that they should choose your business because it is committed to making products accessible.
You can use an Accessibility Statement as a tool to improve your accessibility in the future.
An Accessibility Statement can be used to help you improve accessibility in the future. You might find that, as time goes on, your website becomes more accessible and then needs to be updated with a new Accessibility Statement. In this case, you should use the content of your new statement as a guide for what other improvements may need to be made.
An example could be if you have previously stated that all navigation links are visible without any color or contrast issues (because they do not have any underlines or color). Then, later on you decide that it would be beneficial for these links to also have text descriptions since there are some users who rely on their screen reader’s ability to read out these descriptions. This would mean updating your Accessibility Statement so that it now states: “All navigation links are visible without any color or contrast issues (because they do not have any underlines or color) and also include text descriptions.”
The goal of your Accessibility Statement should be to make people with disabilities feel empowered to interact with you and tell you how they use your service.
Your accessibility statement should be a living document. It should be constantly updated as you add new features or update existing ones.
You want people with disabilities to feel empowered to interact with you, and your accessibility statement is the perfect place for them to do so. You can even use it as a communication tool on its own—have an accessible version of the site available on your website so that users know what they’re getting into before they even click through!
The goal of your Accessibility Statement is not just for third-parties like government agencies; it’s also intended for internal use, so that every employee knows how important accessibility is at your company, which will help keep everybody accountable for their actions in regards to accessibility issues.
Conclusion
The goal of your accessibility statement should be to make people with disabilities feel empowered to interact with you and tell you how they use your service. An accessibility statement is a tool that can help create support among all of your stakeholders by showing them that you are committed to accessibility in all of your projects.