I aim to make my website and digital portfolio accessible to all users. In my efforts to do so, I have considered and incorporated principles of accessible design into my website and digital portfolio as noted below.
Accessibility in the Digital Portfolio: For my digital MLIS portfolio, I decided to create a WordPress website in order to utilize a layout theme (I chose the “Small Business” theme) that is already deemed “accessibility ready” by WordPress (https://en.support.wordpress.com/accessibility/). Per WordPress’s Handbook, for a theme to be tagged as “accessibility-ready” it must undergo “an accessibility review….Themes with this tag may not be made live in the theme repository until they have passed an accessibility audit” (https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/review/accessibility/).
In addition to choosing an “accessibility-ready” WordPress theme for my website, I also tried to follow the four principles of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to make my website “perceivable”, “operable”, “understandable”, and “robust” for all users when creating and adding content for my website (https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/handbook/which-questions-should-you-ask/#levels-of-accessibility).
- To make the website “perceivable”, my website can be presented in different ways without losing meaning, the text can be resized, and it is easy for users to see it as there are not many colors, no images and no multimedia.
- To make the website “operable”, all essential functionality is available from a keyboard, there is no time-limit to read anything or use any content, and my header menu is easy to navigate to and find content. Additionally, for all linked content, I have listed a clear description of what the content is.
- To make the website “understandable”, I have made text readable and comprehensible.
- To make the website “robust”, my website content should be able to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of users.
Per WordPress, “there are 3 levels of accessibility: 1. A (basic), 2. AA (the global accessibility standard), and 3. AAA (for dedicated software)” and “most European Union and other countries use the accessibility standard WCAG 2.0 AA or equivalent for their government websites” (https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/handbook/which-questions-should-you-ask/#levels-of-accessibility). My website aims to meet the AA standard (the global accessibility standard).
Differences in the Downloadable Portfolio: While there are no substantial differences between the downloadable portfolio and the digital portfolio, there are a few small differences, including:
- My digital portfolio is a live document that can be edited and updated. On the other hand, my downloadable portfolio is a static document.
- In my digital portfolio, my “50-Word Issue Paper Summary” and a clickable link to the full text of my issue paper are located on one webpage. Whereas in the downloadable portfolio, the “50-Word Issue Paper Summary” is on its own page that precedes the full text of my issue paper.
- In my digital portfolio, I have included links to the full text of my papers (as opposed to including the full text within the webpage itself). I have done this in order to limit the amount of text in the webpages and to maintain the original formats of my past course papers. Whereas in my downloadable portfolio, the full text of each paper (in its original format from when the paper was submitted for grading) are located on the page following each paper’s abstracts.
Feedback: I am always striving to make my website and digital portfolio better and more accessible to users. As such, if you encounter any issues or barriers to use of this website, please contact me at joanna.smith@ucla.edu. Thanks!
Joanna Smith 