Accessibility

Our mission at Awaken Pittsburgh is to make a more accessible web space for our team, our clients, and our visitors.

One in four adults in the United States has a disability that impacts their ability to interact with the online world. At Rhode Center, we strive to ensure that everything we create or add to our website is usable by people of all abilities.

Accessibility at Awaken Pittsburgh

We have structured our website to allow those of all abilities to easily and quickly find the information they need.

Ongoing Efforts to Ensure Accessibility

Our site follows Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 Level AA Success Criteria (and where possible Level AAA) opens a new window and the latest ICT Refresh (Section 508) guidelines opens a new window as they apply to the web as our primary goal. These guidelines include internationally agreed-upon standards and ICT Refresh Compliance Criteria that cover a wide range of recommendations and best practices for making content more accessible and ADA Compliant opens a new window. As new content and pages are created for our website. We apply these guidelines to all our designs, code, and content as new content and pages are created for our website.

Testing of our website is performed by accessibility experts using industry-standard tools such as AXE Accessibility opens a new window, WAVE opens a new window, NVDA Screen Reader opens a new window, Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA) opens a new window, additional browser extensions like HeadingsMap (verify page content structure) opens a new window, and keyboard-only navigation techniques.

Accessibility Features at Awaken Pittsburgh

The following is a list of components and functions meant to improve our site’s accessibility:

  • The Awaken Pittsburgh design has incorporated a mobile-responsive version of its content.
  • We have selected colors for color contrast and meet AA requirements, even for small text.
  • Navigational aids are provided throughout our website. Skip navigation links have been incorporated to enable smooth keyboard navigation and to bypass repeated content.
  • The language of our website is declared in the header.
  • All images and other non-text elements are appropriately marked up to either reflect their purely decorative purpose or share informative content in their alternative text attributes.
  • Landmark and heading markups indicate expected navigation, section containers, headings, lists, and buttons in a more understandable and skimmable way for all users, regardless of device.
  • Forms are associated with labels or applicable Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) and include appropriate instructions on filling in form controls, with clearly understandable error states.
  • (ARIA) screen-reader only text is present when links, buttons, icons, or images need additional context to understand their meaning.
  • Warning text (readable by screen-readers) is displayed when links open in a new tab or window wherever possible.

Accessibility Support Contact

We welcome comments, questions, and feedback on our website. If you notice anything that doesn’t work for you or your assistive technology, please let us know. We will do our best to assist you and resolve issues.

Contact Us

Certification of Compliance

This website, Awaken Pittsburgh Website, located at https://awakenpittsburgh.org/, has been tested for and remediated to the latest WCAG 2.1 and ICT Refresh Standards. This was intended to provide an enhanced user experience, and although extensive, this shouldn’t be considered as an exhaustive list for improving accessibility and user experience. As the website gets more traffic, it is highly recommended to collect feedback from users to discover additional pain points, usability issues, and future improvements.

Scope

The focus of this Audit and Remediation is based on testing compliance with WCAG 2.1 criteria, Section 508 Refresh, ADA Compliance, and overall accessibility of the website to users with disabilities and their Assistive Technology (AT).

Method

The site pages were tested with Color and Evaluation tools, multiple browsers, and a screen reader against WCAG 2.1 criteria, ADA Compliance, and Section 508 Refresh Standards. This includes both automated and manual procedures.

Result

Overall, the website is within ADA compliance and WCAG 2.1 Level AA Standards as of this date, August 2023, by an ADA Compliance Expert, Matthew Dempsey opens a new window.

ADA Compliance overlapping spheres of WCAG and Section 508 image