Drupal Accessible Web Design

OPIN's Drupal Accessible Web Design Services

A considerable amount of North Americans are differently-abled. Nearly one in five Canadians (6.2 million) have at least one disability that limits them from daily activities, including the use of the web.

As well, one in four Americans (61 million) have hindrances that affect their lives. OPIN will help your organization tackle any website accessibility issue that is impacting your Drupal website.

Drupal Accessibility Modules

The Drupal community is one of the most inclusive communities in the world that is committed to making Drupal an accessible tool for building websites that can be accessed by people living with disabilities.

There are many considerations that address every accessibility feature available and follow a strict accessibility guideline to ensure creating an accessible website is the foundation of every Drupal site.

All features of the Drupal core conform to WCAG compliant 2.0 AA and ADA standards. Drupal's accessibility team continuously identifies and resolves accessibility barriers within its code. Assistive technology is always at the forefront of our minds when building a new site.

Barriers currently hindering citizens with disabilities to exercise their rights are still a major issue. Luckily, Drupal accessibility modules ensure that each form of digital media such as websites, applications and programs are accessible to everyone.

OPIN will configure Drupal modules on your site, giving your content authors a new button when editing content that checks their work for accessibility problems.

Drupal 8 accessibility modules and plugins

Drupal has long since been a leader in the world of digital accessibility. Drupal accessibility modules provide an entire suite of tools for authors and developers to help them create a more inclusive and accessible experience for all users. Some of the available modules are as follows:

Accessibility Editor

Modules such as CKEditor , usually called what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG), provide your content creators with the tools to check their work for any accessibility issues.

Accessible Themes

This module allows theme developers to mitigate significant impacts on accessibility by providing them with feedback on potential issues as they create various themes. Once enabled, theming permission boxes will appear at the bottom of each page on your site, giving encompassing feedback of the page content.

Accessibility TestSwarm

OPIN's Drupal Accessibility Expertise

Web accessibility is being considered a priority today more than ever before. OPIN has over a decade of experience in accessibility training, helping to ensure organizations are fully prepared to meet national and international accessibility legislation requirements.

Ensuring your business is prepared to make the leap to inclusivity is a very smart decision - not only for your business but for your customers.

Diversity and inclusion is a core company value at OPIN. As such, all of our projects are designed, developed, and implemented in compliance with the accessibility standards. 

Every OPIN employee is not only a Drupal expert but also undergoes accessibility training when they first join.

We train employees in WCAG, and provide a professional development stipend to employees who wish to undergo further education and training in web accessibility via conferences and additional courses to ensure each team member understands accessible content and conformance. 

Each employee who deals with the public or otherwise performs customer service is trained to communicate with and offer specialized customer service to customers with disabilities.

Designing for Accessibility

We follow best practices in every element where design can impact accessibility, including:

• Colour - Ensuring adequate contrast and use as a visual cue.
• Images - Attaching descriptive alternative text (alt-text) for necessary visuals.
• Audio - Allowing users to easily control all on-page sounds.
• Layout - Organizing content in an easy-to-understand sequence.
• Animations - Avoiding any animations that could elicit an adverse reaction.
• Video - Including transcripts and closed captioning.
• Forms - Offering descriptive labels and borders on all text inputs and errors.

Developing for Accessibility

We comply with best practices in every element where development can impact accessibility, including:

• Adapting code to user devices.
• Incorporating assistive technologies.
• Allowing keyboard accessibility and navigation.
• Aligning reading and code order.
• Associating page markup with content meaning.
• Allowing language selection.
• Allowing users to correct input mistakes.
• Utilizing Drupal accessibility modules.
• Ensuring compatibility with commonly used devices and input methods.

Monitoring for Accessibility

During the implementation process, our quality control team applies a complete suite of automated and manual testing methods to ensure the websites they develop meet requirements for accessibility that are compliant with WCAG standards. These include:

• Automated testing with Groundswell
• Continuous integration testing with pa11y
• Manual testing with the WAVE Toolbar

Paving the Way to a More Accessible Future

Ultimately, OPIN does more than comply with accessibility requirements - accessibility has been a cornerstone of our company, culture, and projects since the company’s inception.

We make an effort to contribute thought leadership on accessibility and to innovate to drive the industry forward.

To that end, OPIN has partnered with Siteimprove, the leader in accessibility compliance monitoring, to host virtual events and webinars, promoting the importance of web accessibility and web inclusivity.

If you are interested in learning how to validate web accessibility further, check out our many articles covering web accessibility! We even wrote a fully comprehensive, ultimate guide to web accessibility so you can see where you website is currently ranks in terms of compliance.