Access the Vote

The Client

Accessthevote.org was created by Disability Rights Florida to assist voters with disabilities through the unique challenges of voting. Because of their audience, it was extremely important for them to have top-notch accessibility.

The Problem

DRFLA initially came to Advomatic not for a new build or a refresh, but rather a remediation: adding, removing, and retooling code to ensure the best experience for users of varying abilities. After we had been working together for awhile, they came back for some new work to refresh the site as the headquarters for the RevUp Initiative in Florida. As such, they required new functionality, site restructuring, and a small facelift – all while maintaining their extremely high level of accessibility. 

DRFLA screenshot

 

The Solution

Initially, Advomatic approached this project looking at these areas for improved accessibility:

  • ARIA attributes
  • Color Contrast
  • Content Hierarchy
  • Link language
  • Forms
  • Multilingual
  • Tables
  • Videos
  • Third Party Plugins

In the second round of work, Advomatic delivered simple mock-ups of the facelift, as well as wireframes, reflecting refinements to the site’s navigational structure. Once those were accepted, Advomatic implemented the changes in WordPress. These changes helped make the site more user-friendly and also tied it to the RevUp Initiative campaign to get out the vote in Florida.

Project Goals and Challenges

While some categories were easy to improve (language on links, color contrast), some proved more challenging. Any component that involved a third-party was – as usual – harder to fix. 

There are always pros and cons to weigh when adding third-party plug-ins to a site, and even the most widely used are not always fully accessible. For this site, the pros of these plugins outweighed the cons, but we found ways to improve them where we could. 

The Able Player plugin gives greater control over playback for users with disabilities, and even works with embedded Youtube videos.

YouTube

Able Player screenshot

The Able Player plugin gives greater control over playback for users with disabilities, and even works with embedded Youtube videos.

Embedded YouTube videos have poor accessibility. To improve it, we implemented Able Player to give users with disabilities a better experience and more control over the playback speed, contrast and captioning. We also replaced the automated YouTube captions with human-generated captions, for improved accuracy. 

Recite Me

We integrated the Recite Me accessibility toolbar so that users could consume the website content in a more personalized way — whether that be utilizing language translation, engaging the screen reader software, or changing the website styles to best meet their unique needs.

Services We Provided

  • Accessibility audits and remediation
  • Site refresh (mockups and implementation)
  • Wireframes and Content Strategy deliverables
  • WordPress site development

Advomatic is proud to work with organizations like Disability Rights Florida, and look forward to continued collaboration as they stay on with us as a Continuous Care client. 

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