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PST3
South Concourse

Accessibility in the trenches: accessible redesign, from research to implementation to maintenance

Monday, Oct 22 11:45 - 12:45

Presented by Sarah Ferguson

Now that we’ve painted the house, let’s install the foundation.
Remediating a website for accessibility after the fact is more than a headache. It’s costly, time consuming, and illogical.

Brandeis University is entering the final stages a lengthy redesign. We’ve made the new site accessible from the ground up. This includes considering accessibility throughout the redesign process: planning, visual design, code testing/tweaking/retesting and content creation. We learned a lot along the way, as did our CMS, development and widget vendors. We’ll discuss challenges such as pushing back when your vendors claim accessibility, training web editors, and monitoring content. We’ll shared what worked and what we’ll do differently next time.

Slides

About

Sarah Ferguson

Web Accessibility Specialist

Sarah Ferguson has spent almost two decades in the realm of higher education, including stints in educational publishing, software, administration and communications. She completed her undergraduate work at Connecticut College and earned her Masters in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a focus in educational technology, in 2007. With over 10 years experience in digital accessibility, she currently imparts her expertise to the Brandeis University community as their Web Accessibility Specialist. Ferguson is a linguaphile with a passion for painting, genealogy, world cultures, and helping to make the world more accessible.