Electric cooperative website accessibility
Electric cooperative website accessibility is about making sure that all of your members can have access to the same information online, in a way that works for them.
Our approach to web accessibility includes building accessible electric cooperative websites from the ground up and then equipping you with simple tools to stay on track with a built-in accessibility checker.
Accessibility within reach for co-ops of any size
Although the ADA provides no checklist to certify a website is officially “compliant,” we’re dedicated to ensuring your electric cooperative website is accessible to every one of your visitors from the very start, in much the same way that your co-op would install ramps at front doors to do right by your members.
How often will doing our job a little better actually improve people’s lives? Accessibility means a site can be equally useful, informative, and enjoyable for folks with any number of challenges – vision, hearing, learning, mobility, or motor – who are usually (or already) reliant on additional hardware or software to make web browsing possible at all.
Accessibility is an ongoing process
As a website is updated, new elements can cause accessibility issues so it is important to stay on top of things to ensure website accessibility is aligned with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Cooperative Inc.’s product partnerships provide your cooperative with technology options and services, which include:
- Automated accessibility scans
- Real-time guidance to identify and fix WCAG errors
- Manual error remediation
- PDF Remediation
- Video captioning
Perhaps the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sums it up best, “Until legal website accessibility standards are established, the voluntary WCAG remains the de facto roadmap for now.”