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Join the global accessibility community

There is a vibrant community of accessibility advocates on the internet. This is a group dedicated to inclusion, so it is easy to join. There is so much to learn, and digital accessibility best practices are constantly changing. There is no course or certificate that will give you access to everything your organization needs to be compliant with the law. It takes a community of people to work collectively to find or establish better practices for your website.

You can find people interested in accessibility in whatever piece of the internet you are most comfortable using. There is a /accessibility subreddit or web-a11y Slack channel, but there are similar groups in Facebook and LinkedIN too. Most of these are open. If you are part of a software community like Drupal, there are likely many ways to engage with accessibility people in that space, like an #accessibility channel in whatever messaging platform is used.

The UK's Government Digital Service has proven regular inter-agency leadership on accessibility in government. If you work for a government agency in the United Kingdom, you can join this group. They now have thousands of cross government accessibility community meetups and a Slack channel for government employees to talk about accessibility. They have gone so far as to build it into their Service Manual.

In isolation it is difficult for any one individual to get accessibility right, and maintain it over time. It really is important to find ways that multiple people within an organization or across related organizations, can have a community to lean on. The Section508.gov's Technology Accessibility Playbook includes a play on collaborating with the federal accessibility community.

Look outside and see where you can draw from outside of your team or department.

Checklist Anchor link

Key questions Anchor link

  • Does the organization know who has experience or interest in accessibility?
  • Is there a disability working group for staff who have disabilities?