A great campaign , a terrible website . WeThe15

A great campaign idea and launched in tandem with the 2020 Paralympics, "We The 15" is a campaign I could get behind. And while the video is great, the website is a mess!

What is the campaign?

WeThe15 is a global movement, which was founded by a coalition of organisations from sport, human rights, policy, communications, business, arts and entertainment, uniting to change attitudes and create more opportunities for persons with disabilities, as well as improve mobility and accessibility.

Source: https://www.wethe15.org/the-campaign

In essence it is a campaign designed to start the conversation around accessibility, disability and inclusion and then drive that conversation into action!

A 10 year long campaign to remove barriers that people with disabilities face every day.

Why am I excited by this?

Well you probably know I love accessibility.

But more importantly their promotion video is, without doubt, the single best video (advert) on disability I have seen and I hope it will resonate with people.

It puts the point across that I believe deeply in.

People with disabilities do not want sympathy, they are not "special" or "inspiring".

They are people, with lives, jobs, desires and wishes.

All people with disabilities want is:

A conversation to happen around accessibility and inclusion..

That leads to consideration when designing products and services or policies...

That leads to a more accessible and inclusive world.

They basically want you to stop being so absent minded and think about disability and accessibility so they can get on with life without having to face the barriers your shoddy code creates.

The video!

Absolute perfection if you ask me!

Although the website leaves a lot to be desired....

I am disappointed that the website makes a load of accessibility mistakes though!

I am not going to list them all but for a 7 page website there are a lot of issues:

1. They use userway overlay - overlays are not accessible
2. You can't access the drop down menu with the keyboard so 70% of the site is not accessible to keyboard users.
3. There are colour contrast issues.
4. Their subscribe form doesn't have visible, permanent labels!
5. They have missed a couple of alt attributes...yes really!
6. Their social media links to not have any text that a screen reader can access.
7. They start at heading level 2 on the home page, heading level 3 on others!
8. Some of the buttons do not have visible focus indicators.

These are accessibility basics.

So could you do me a favour?

Can you tweet this article to @wethe15 and see if we can get their attention so I can help them fix this problem before the campaign gets momentum!

More information

• WeThe15 website
• BBC article on WeThe15

And of course, you can always brush up on your accessibility skills with my mega reference piece:

101 Digital Accessibility tips and tricks

InHuOfficial Jul 30 68 min read

#webdev #html #a11y #beginners