Project Background

Accessible Welcomes is a DIY zine and beta website built by Philippa as a final project for my Exceptionalities class at Maine College of Art in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program. 

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Project Goal

The goal of this project is to offer basic resources and inspiration for building more accessible educational spaces online and off: classrooms, field trips, organizing spaces. 

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The Future of This Project

This project is just a start. Best practices for accessibility and iclusivity are in constant flux. This project is by nowhere close to being a definitive or complete guide to accessibilty; instead, a jumping off point for asking the question how can I best create educational programing that is inclusive for all?

 

I welcome updated versions of the zine, translations, and recommendations for adding further resources. All updates will be added to the website and the previous versions will be archived with notes. 

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Development

This site was created using the free Wix website editor. 

The website is designed with Helvetica, Helvetica lite, and Helvetica bold in font size 16 and 20. 

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For design I used the Github hosted tool Accessible color palette builder to check for accessible contrast levels.

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​To check this website for screen reader compatibility I utilized the open source screen reader NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) Version 2020.3 and WAVE Evaluation Tool Version 3.1.3. Chrome extension. I used these on my computer which is running Windows 10 using web browser Google Chrome version 87.

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Though I have made efforts to use current best practices for website design accessibility, I am a novice when it comes to designing user experience, graphic design, and screen reader navigation and I am limited by being a team of one with no budget. I welcome input on any glaring issues but am aware that this is far from a perfectly accessible website!