Learn key features of Drupal that help make your site useful to people of all abilities

Photo by Cliff Booth from Pexels

As developers and designers working to help government agencies modernize their IT systems and websites, we are constantly aware of the far-reaching impact of our work. Many people stand to benefit from better government experiences online — that is, if we do our job well. If not, people may struggle to navigate websites that don't properly address accessibility issues.

We believe that accessibility is not just for meeting requirements — it's for the people (of varying abilities and circumstances) who are relying on government websites for critical information and services. So we built a community of practice to share and learn with others who are doing this work, and we choose open source tools that support accessibility in the long term.

Drupal is one of those tools — a content management platform that is continually updated to help people meet evolving accessibility standards. At DrupalCon North America 2021, CivicActions engineer Jennifer Aube gave a lightning talk to explain some of the features of Drupal that come built-in to support accessibility. Have a look!

https://medium.com/media/1930322fa36c62488ab5a0487169f1d4/href

"Every person deserves an equal opportunity to engage in all sites." — Jennifer Aube

Highlights

  • 0:30 — Why should we care about accessibility?
  • 1:27 — Disability simulator: See a live demo of how people experience disability
  • 3:23 — Why you shouldn't turn off alternative text functionality
  • 4:15 — How "skip navigation" helps disabled people get right to the important content
  • 5:00 — What are "field sets" and how are they used?
  • 5:47 — Tips for using form labels effectively
  • 6:32 — Help users get around the site without a keyboard
  • 8:07 — How to use Google Disability Simulator
  • 9:00 — Q&A

Resources

Connect with Jennifer

How Drupal helps us bake accessibility into every project was originally published in CivicActions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.