A recent benchmarking study of municipality websites revealed that 40 percent failed accessibility tests. These results are troublesome in light of the ADA’s legal mandate that the operations and services of local governments, including their websites, are accessible to individuals with disabilities who make up over 15% of the population. The U.S. Department of Justice not only is moving forward with promulgating regulations to govern website accessibility, but also is pursuing legal actions against those municipalities and local governments whose websites and other Internet communications are not accessible to individuals with disabilities.. In their webinar, Jonathan R. Mook, a partner in the law firm of DiMuroGinsberg and a nationally recognized authority on the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Joseph A. Martini, Director of Assistive Technology at Perkins Solutions/Perkins School for the Blind, will discuss the legal obligations of municipalities and local governments to ensure that their Internet communications are accessible and provide practical advice on the best steps to take to achieve website accessibility. They will also review various technologies that are used by individuals with disabilities to access digital information. Through demonstrations and video clips examples of how technologies are used as well as examples of inaccessible and accessible websites will be discussed. Jonathan and Joseph are expected to address such important areas as:
• Questions to address with IT and third party vendors regarding the compatibility of your website’s technology with website visitors’ Assistive Technology such as speech-recognition software, magnification software or alternative input devices;
• How VPATs (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) can help in the evaluation of third party software;
• Captioning of videos housed on your website, to ensure that hearing-impaired web-site visitors have access to the information;
• Examples of how visually impaired web site visitors may not be able to read information on your website due to color contrast or font size;
• How questions in a certain website processes (i.e. filling out an application) could run afoul of the ADA if they require timed responses or lack a method to pause.;
• Best practices for using images on your website, so they can be interpreted by all; and
• Other technology-based assistive accommodations you may need to make for disabled employees.

Speakers: Jonathan Mook, Joeseph Martini & Dan Crean

2017 Distance Learning