All government digital products in the U.S. need to be accessible. Accessibility means making sure your website is available to as many people as possible. It also means your site needs to conform to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
To make sure that your Commonwealth of Massachusetts website meets these requirements, we’ve developed Mayflower, a design system that meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and 2.1. Using Mayflower correctly will ensure that a broad range of users can access your website. WCAG is the gold standard of web accessibility and as such, has been incorporated into Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and is followed by most government agencies - including us!
As technology evolves, some methods of meeting accessibility guidelines become obsolete. Overtime Mayflower will be updated to address these changes through periodic accessibility testing.
Here, you'll find resources for web accessibility from basic concepts to technical approaches.
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- Web Accessibility Standards in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- IT Accessibility in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- Adobe Blog: Design With Accessibility in Mind: The POUR Methodology
- Bureau of Internet Accessibility: Website Accessibility Isn't What You Think It Is: 10 Myths, Busted
- Brailleworks: Why Accessibility Matters
- Carie Fisher: Getting Started with Website Accessibility
- DandiSoft: The benefits of Web Accessibility
- DYNAMIT: POUR Accessibility
- DYNO Mapper: Building a POUR Website: the 4 Principles of Accessibility
- Stanford University Online Accessibility Program: Why Accessibility Matters
- TechWell: The Top Four Myths about Web Accessibility
- U.S. General Services Administration: Benefits of Accessible Design
- W3C: Accessibility Principles
- W3C: Social Factors in Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
- W3C: Financial Factors in Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
- W3C: How People with Disabilities Use the Web
- WebAIM: Constructing a POUR Website
- The Whole Brain Group: 5 Benefits of an Accessible Website Design
- Wikipedia: Web accessibility
- WUHCAG: What is web accessibility?