[community] Website Design & Accessibility Testing

[Laura Yvonne Bulk]

Hello Community! It was great to meet some of you at DEEP this week.

I've got two queries.

1) A friend is working with a company and wanting to find someone to *check
their website for accessibility* - is there anyone in the community who
does that/do you know of someone to whom I can direct her?

2) I am trying to figure out *how to create an online platform in an
affordable way*. The person with whom I'm working has done a previous
project using a platform similar to what we want to create - it's the
Cold at Home project <http://www.coldathome.today/cold-at-home> - but that
website has some accessibility issues. She says we can get someone from
that design team to give us the template and help a bit with setting up the
website, for about $4000! At this point we are without any funding sources,
so I'm hoping to find another way.

In case you're interested to know, here's a bit about the project...
The project is Being blind: Exploring experiences & challenging
perceptions. My partner is a photojournalist & international social justice
advocate. We are working to develop a platform for an *exploration of being
blind* in a variety of economic, geographic, political, and social
contexts, and to *challenge misconceptions* of being blind. We will design
in-depth photojournalistic profiles of people from 8 countries,

   - *sharing the experience* of blindness in diverse contexts,
   - exploring how we *defy stereotypes*,
   - *exposing stigmas/assumptions *that get in our way.

In parallel, experts and community members will contribute blogs that
facilitate knowledge exchange, resource sharing and generate
dialogue. Contributors include

   - Blind/partially people & those in our support networks can share life
   experiences and
   - Experts who contribute blogs about building personal skills, accessing
   technologies, action to improve legal, political & social circumstances,
   etc.
   - The public who will be able to ask questions & interact.

We hope to make it an accessible and engaging multimedia platform. We are
thinking of including media such as:

   - Short videos, maybe like this video called seeing blindness
   <https://seeingblindness.tumblr.com>
   - Blogs, which may contain information, evidence/research, new
   tech/projects, poetry, stories, etc.
   - Described photographs along with stories and audioclips
   - Links to other resources, podcasts, etc

A single portal for storytelling and reporting on academic and technical
advances creates a link between evidence-based research and real life. We
hope that being blind will have ranging benefits for

   - blind people, by providing a *space to share our stories & challenge
   stigmas* that lead to exclusion
   - experts, by *offering journalistic coverage of academic research &
   technical advances*
   - policy makers, by providing *content that can inform more equitable
   approaches*
   - the public, by increasing awareness

​If you have any thoughts, ideas, or leads, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks in advance!​

Laura Yvonne Bulk OT, MOT, BSW
PhD Candidate, Rehabilitation Sciences
<https://twitter.com/LYBOT> Twitter: @LYBOT
Faculty of Medicine | The University of British Columbia
T325 – 2211 Wesbrook Mall | Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 2B5
Mobile: 778.228.4774
LauraBulk at gmail.com