Accessibility

Public-facing systems and interfaces should ideally be capable of offering equal, non-discriminatory access to information and data. This is a minimum, unwavering regulatory requirement for most government contracts, and is furthermore a responsible best practice for institutions in the private sector that need to address community-wide, statewide or national audiences.

At Portland Webworks, we take such matters very seriously, and make accessibility a central consideration in every UX decision and recommendation that we offer to our clients. We try to make sure that every product delivered by our team meets certain common minimum standards for Perceivability, Operability, Understandability, and Robustness (POUR).

Nearly all of the custom software development and website work accomplished by our team has necessitated formal compliance in this regard. We have years of experience handling projects subject to 508 and WCAG “priority 2” (AA) and “priority 3” (AAA) checkpoints, and have delivered approved, compliant solutions for a number of government institutions situated throughout Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Missouri, Idaho, Iowa, Washington, and Colorado.

We employ specialists with hands-on background and expertise in this area, and use a robust repertoire of supplemental development tools to ensure that our solutions are appropriately customized and configured to accommodate the full and responsible spectrum of compliance specifications, to include the following factors, which are identified as components of the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT):

1194.21 Software applications and operating systems
1194.22 Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications
1194.23 Telecommunications Products
1194.24 Video and multimedia products
1194.25 Self contained, closed products
1194.26 Desktop and portable computers
1194.31 Functional Performance Criteria
1194.41 Information, Documentation and Support
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) www.w3c.org