Improving Digital Accessibility for Architects & Digital Business Users

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Digital Accessibility for Enterprise Architects

The Avolution development team recently added several new features to improve digital accessibility in ABACUS. This includes updates which enhance the experience for users of common screen-reader solutions.

By improving accessibility of digital information in ABACUS, we want to support inclusion of users with color blindness or vision impairment, and improve the online experience for all users.

Users can access ABACUS in tandem with JAWS (Job Access With Speech) and Microsoft Narrator. Both tools can dictate screen content, along with font, text color, punctuation, and a Braille display.

Video: New windows in ABACUS Studio are announced using Microsoft Narrator.

Additionally, further accessibility attributes, labels, and alt-text have been added to improve the experience for those using screen readers.

Users also have additional options to show color value in bubble chart tooltips in ABACUS Enterprise. A red-green color deficiency is the most common type of colour blindness; therefore, it often recommended to use a green-blue color scheme.

More information on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliant colors and web formatting can be found in this WebAIM’s blog post. (Open in a new window)

Accessibility Features and Inclusive Design

In recent years, web accessibility has moved to the top of web and software creators’ list of priorities.

While many recognize the importance of “human-centered design”, there is still a large majority who overlook design accessible features for users with disabilities. Aside from being exclusionary, this can lead to lawsuits and losing revenue to their more accessible competitors.

“A more precise way of thinking about inclusive design is that it incorporates the human-centered design approach to building solutions. This starts with cultivating empathy for people for whom the technology is intended, followed by testing those solutions with the intended end users and refining them regularly.” cio.com

 

Accessibility is an on-going project

The Avolution product development team will continue to increase ABACUS’ digital accessibility. To do this, we plan to monitor performance regularly to ensure our recent updates to digital accessibility continue to meet expectations as well as the guidelines in WCAG 2.1.

“There is no single accessibility expert. It’s a shared responsibility, and all developers have to leverage others’ knowledge to grow their understanding and manifestation of accessibility.” – Harvard Business Review

Ready to explore Digital Accessibility in ABACUS?

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