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Global Accessibility Awareness Day - Our Pledge!
18/05/2023 00:00, In Blog /
Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day! The purpose of Global Accessibility Awareness Day is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different disabilities.
There are over 1 billion people worldwide who have disabilites and we are making it our mission to make our content accessible for all.
Why is Digital Accessibility so important?
Every user deserves a first-rate digital experience. Someone with a disability must be able to experience web-based services, content and other digital products with the same successful outcome as those without disabilities. This awareness and commitment to inclusion is the goal of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a global event that shines a light on digital access and inclusion for people with disabilities.
What changes have Welsh Athletics implemented so far?
The team at Welsh Athletics are on a mission to make our digital communications accessible and inlcusive for all.
Over the last few months Welsh Athletics Marketing and Communications team have attended multiple training courses organised by Disability Sport Wales and Sport Wales to help understand what actions we can take to make our digital content more accessible. From this training we have implemented the following:
- Adding in ALT text for images on our social posts
- Adding in ALT text for images in our members newsletters
- Adding subtitles on all newly created video content for social media including Youtube
Jozie Postles, Head of Marketing & Communications at Welsh Athletics shared:
The changes we have made to date have been a great step in the right direction in making our content more accessible and inclusive for all. However, we know there is still a lot more we can do and are committed to improving further.
Together, with the team and support from our partners and agencies we will strive to make our content WCAG AA compliant over the next year.
What actions are Welsh Athletics taking in the future?
Welsh Athletics have teamed up with experts from Disability Sport Wales and WebBox (Welsh Athletics website provider) to look at how we can make our website more accessible going forward.
Over the coming months, we will be implementing various updates to our website, making it WCAG AA compliant.
Some of these updates include:
- Updating our colour contrast ratio
- Updating our title fonts and font sizes
- Adding in ALT tags for images
Top tips from elite athletes
To help rasie awareness of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we have also teamed up with elite athletes, James Ledger, Olivia Breen and Stephen Morris to understand their disabilites and what actions everyone can take to make digital content more accessible.
To find out more about Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and you can get involved click here.