10 Quick Wins to Make your Website More Accessible

Good usability is good accessibility.

It is legally required to meet a certain level of web accessibility, but it makes good business sense too: at least 26% of US adults report some kind of disability, and many of those people will need accessibly-designed web experiences.

From over 4,200 hours of in-depth UX research and usability studies, Sandstorm has distilled decades’ worth of research and accessibility best practices into our top 10 list — accessibility and usability considerations every organization can learn from and apply to their digital experiences.

This session will help you to understand the major accessibility issues and pitfalls, ranging from menus, carousels, color, hover states, discoverable links, etc. We’ll use the AMA Chicago website as our guide, identifying key accessibility issues, but more importantly, providing actionable accessibility and usability tips every organization can learn from and apply immediately to their digital experiences.

Three takeaways you can apply:

• The most common accessibility issues and where most organizations fall on the spectrum.
• Strategies for addressing common accessibility issues, i.e., menus, carousels, color, hover states, discoverable links, and more.
• Accessibility training strategies and tactics that can be implemented to ensure ongoing accessibility compliance.

Speaker: Janna Fiester

Vice President of Creative & UX at Sandstorm Design

Vice President of Creative & UX at Sandstorm Design, Janna is a design-thinker and user-advocate. Always striving to make client work better, she sees the possibility in everything and takes nuggets of good ideas and nurtures them into strategically driven and unique unexpected executions. Janna honed this skill while earning her MFA and teaching at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Throughout her 25 years of experience, Janna’s work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and showcased in several design publications as well as winning industry awards. Janna serves as the Co-organizer and License holder for TEDxOakPark, a locally organized movement providing TEDx events to the community; mentoring young professionals via AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) and guiding local high school students at the Oak Park River Forest High School INCubatoredu®, serving on the Board of Directors for Project 88 Music Academy, which brings affordable, high-quality classical music education and performances to the community; or on the stage with castanets in hand performing Flamenco.