Website Accessibility for Municipalities, Nonprofits & Small Organizations

A website should help people find information, understand it, and complete the task they came to accomplish.

That sounds simple, but websites are used by people with different abilities, devices, browsers, screen sizes, input methods, and assistive technologies.

Website accessibility is the process of identifying unnecessary barriers and making online information and services easier for as many people as reasonably possible to use.

For municipalities, nonprofits, clubs, community organizations, and small businesses, accessibility does not need to begin with fear or an overwhelming technical project.

It can begin by making the website better, one practical improvement at a time.

Accessibility Is About People

Accessibility standards and testing tools are important, but the reason for accessibility is people.

A visitor may have limited vision, color-vision differences, hearing loss, limited mobility, difficulty using a mouse, cognitive or learning differences, or another disability that changes the way they interact with a website.

Other visitors may simply be using a phone outdoors in bright sunlight, navigating with a keyboard, dealing with a slow connection, recovering from an injury, or experiencing changes in vision or dexterity that often come with age.

Many accessibility improvements benefit everyone.

Why Accessibility Matters for Community Organizations

A municipal or nonprofit website may provide information people genuinely need.

Meeting notices, applications, public documents, emergency information, recreation programs, contact information, community services, membership information, event registrations, and other resources may be important to everyday life.

If that information is difficult for someone to access, the website is not fully accomplishing its purpose.

Accessibility helps make public and organizational information more useful to the entire community.

Accessibility and Usability Go Together

Many accessibility improvements are also basic principles of good website design.

Clear headings help screen-reader users understand page structure, but they also make long pages easier for everyone to scan.

Descriptive links help people understand where a link will take them.

Good contrast makes text easier to read.

Proper form labels make forms easier to understand.

Keyboard-friendly navigation provides another way to interact with the website.

Alternative text can communicate the purpose of an important image when the image cannot be seen.

A more accessible website is very often a more usable website.

Areas We Can Review

An accessibility review may include areas such as:

• Page headings and content structure
• Alternative text for meaningful images
• Decorative images and unnecessary descriptions
• Link wording and purpose
• Navigation consistency
• Keyboard navigation
• Form labels and instructions
• Color contrast
• Text readability
• Mobile and responsive behavior
• Semantic HTML
• Tables and data presentation
• Video and audio considerations
• PDFs and downloadable documents
• Focus visibility
• Error messages and form feedback
• Page titles and language information
• Content clarity and organization

The particular review should match the website and the organization rather than applying an identical checklist to every site.

Automated Testing Is Useful—but It Is Not Everything

Accessibility testing tools can identify many important technical problems.

They can detect certain missing labels, structural problems, contrast issues, coding errors, and other potential barriers much faster than a person could find them manually.

We use automated tools because they are valuable.

But automated testing cannot determine everything.

A tool may be able to tell us that an image has alternative text. It cannot always determine whether that text actually communicates the purpose of the image.

It may verify that a heading exists without knowing whether the heading makes sense.

It may find no technical error in a navigation system that is still confusing to a real visitor.

Good accessibility work combines automated testing with human review and judgment.

Try Using the Website Differently

One of the simplest ways to learn about accessibility is to stop using a website the way you normally do.

Try navigating without a mouse.

Increase the text size.

View the site on a small screen.

Move through a form using only the keyboard.

Look at the page structure instead of only its visual appearance.

These simple exercises can reveal issues that are easy to overlook when we always interact with a website in the same way.

Accessibility Is Not a One-Time Project

A website may be carefully reviewed today and gradually develop accessibility problems as new content is added.

A new photograph may be uploaded without useful alternative text. A document may be added in an inaccessible format. A new form may have missing labels. A staff member may create headings based on appearance rather than page structure.

For that reason, accessibility is best viewed as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time certification.

A good website combines accessible design with simple content practices that help keep it accessible over time.

Training the People Who Maintain the Site

The people adding content to a website play an important role in accessibility.

They do not need to become accessibility specialists.

A relatively small number of good habits can prevent many common problems:

• Use headings to organize information logically
• Write meaningful link text
• Add useful alternative text when an image communicates information
• Avoid putting important information only inside an image
• Keep paragraphs and instructions clear
• Use tables for data rather than page layout
• Think about accessibility when uploading documents
• Ask whether someone using the page differently can still understand it

Zehr.net can help organizations develop practical accessibility habits for the people who maintain their websites.

Documents Matter Too

Municipalities and organizations frequently publish agendas, minutes, newsletters, forms, reports, applications, brochures, and other documents as PDFs.

A web page can be accessible while the information linked from it is much more difficult to use.

Documents therefore deserve consideration as part of the overall accessibility picture.

Depending on the document and its purpose, an organization may be able to improve the document itself, provide important information directly as HTML, or offer an alternative way to access the information.

Older Websites Can Be Improved

Accessibility does not always require replacing an entire website.

Many existing sites can be improved incrementally.

We can identify higher-priority issues, correct recurring problems, improve templates or common design elements, and establish better practices for future content.

In some cases, a redesign may ultimately make sense. In others, thoughtful improvements to the existing website may accomplish a great deal.

Prioritize What Matters

A long list of accessibility findings can feel overwhelming, particularly for a small organization with limited staff and budget.

Not every issue has the same impact.

We prefer to prioritize improvements based on factors such as the seriousness of the barrier, how many pages it affects, how important the affected content is, how frequently visitors encounter it, and how practical the correction may be.

Fixing a problem in a shared website template may improve hundreds of pages at once.

Sometimes a relatively small change can make a significant difference.

Standards and Legal Requirements

Website accessibility standards and legal requirements continue to evolve, and the requirements that apply can depend on the type of organization, jurisdiction, website, and services being provided.

Zehr.net can help identify technical accessibility issues and improve websites using recognized accessibility practices and standards.

We do not provide legal advice or guarantee legal compliance. When an organization needs a legal determination about its particular obligations, appropriate legal counsel should be consulted.

Our role is practical: help identify barriers and make the website more accessible and usable.

Accessibility, Simplicity & Maintainability

There is another advantage to accessible design: it often encourages simpler, cleaner websites.

Logical headings, semantic HTML, understandable navigation, properly labeled forms, readable text, descriptive links, and straightforward page structures are not only accessibility practices.

They also tend to create websites that are easier to maintain, easier for search systems to understand, and easier for visitors to use.

Accessibility does not need to be something added on top of a website.

It can be part of building the website well.

Website Accessibility Reviews & Ongoing Support

Zehr.net can provide accessibility assistance as a focused website review, part of a broader website consultation, staff training, remediation project, redesign, or ongoing support relationship.

We can work with organizations that maintain their own websites as well as designers or developers who would like another set of eyes on accessibility and usability.

The goal is not simply to produce a report.

The goal is to identify useful improvements and help make them happen.

Let's Make the Website Easier to Use

If you represent a municipality, nonprofit, club, community organization, small business, or other organization and would like another perspective on your website's accessibility, contact Zehr.net.

We can start with the website you have today.

Review it. Test it. Identify barriers. Prioritize improvements. Help the people maintaining it develop good habits.

Then keep improving it over time.

Accessibility is not about creating a special website for some people. It is about creating a better website for everyone.