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Inclusive design and accessibility for Career Centers Aa
Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Contents
Inclusive design for Career Centers
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Why does inclusive design matter?
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What is accessibility?
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Madgex and inclusive design
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Accessibility Guidelines
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The business impact of accessibility and inclusion for Career Centers How do I measure the impact of an inclusive design?
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How do we maintain inclusive services?
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The future of Inclusive Design for Career Centers
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Resources
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Inclusive design for Career Centers
What is inclusive design? It’s simple, design for everyone.
When we talk about being inclusive, it’s about everyone being able to access information and services, regardless of age, ability, situation or technology.
Inclusively designed products aim to be comprehensive to the widest possible audience and remove any barriers that create unnecessary effort and separation.
Designing for inclusivity allows people with diverse characteristics to use a product in a variety of different environments. This enables numerous ways in which people can participate in online and offline services. At Madgex we believe it is important to provide an easy experience to any person looking for their next stage in employment. That is why we design for inclusivity.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
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” Inclusive design creates products and services that are accessible to, and usable by, as many people as reasonably possible The British Standards Institute
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Inclusive design was first coined in the 1980s by an architect called Ronald Mace from North Carolina, and the principles were initially used for designing buildings. The parameters for inclusive design are…
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Welcoming and accepting
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Clearly communicated information
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Responsive to people’s needs
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Intuitive & easy to use for everyone
Now this ideology has filtered into many other aspects of life, like business and design to name a few, we’ll explore how this should always be a part of your overall business strategy and how it will positively affect your Career Center.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Why does inclusive design matter? It’s good business sense, as well as altruistic.
If someone can’t access your product, or they have a bad experience of your service, then they won’t be able to or likely won’t want to be your customer. Ideally a business wants to engage users, keep them reading and make them want to come back for more. By missing out on creating an inclusive design, you’ll be missing out on conversion opportunities.
What is accessibility? Accessibility is a component of inclusive design.
This is a relatively new concept, only dating back to 1997 with the WorldWide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The WAI brings together people from industry, disability organizations, government and research labs to develop guidelines and resources to make the web accessible to people with a disability.
A website, just like a building or public transport, should be accessible to all. Everyone should have access to information on the web and have a positive and equal experience.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
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” Accessibility is a core value at Apple and something we view as a basic human right Sarah Herrlinger Director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiative, Apple
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Who does accessibility affect?
Everyone.
Good, accessible web design doesn’t just benefit disabled users. Accessibility often improves the online experience for all users, including:
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Mobile and other handheld device users
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People with less common browsers & older technologies
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It’s easier to absorb the information provided
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Who should I be focusing on?
There are four types of disability that we need to consider when making a service accessible. It’s important to remember that there are both long term and temporary versions of these disabilities.
Long Term
Temporary
Blindness, low-vision, color-blindness
Vision
Forgot my glasses
Tinnitus, trying to hear in noisy environment
Hearing
Deafness, hearing loss
Arthritis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s, stroke
RSI, broken wrist or arm
Physical
Down’s Syndrome, Asperger’s, dyslexia
Cognitive
Hangover
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Many businesses do not realize the prevalence of disability & accessibility, and therefore how many of your customers are likely to have a disability. Let’s take look at some facts…
Approximately
people 40 years and over in the United States have vision impairment, including 1 million who are blind. 12 million
Over 1billion live with some form of disability
One in 4 U.S. adults – 61 million Americans – have a disability that impacts major life activities. (CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2016)
1 in 5 (18%) of working age people in the UK reported a disability in 2017/18, having increased by around 1-2% since 2013/14.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
men have some form of colour-blindness Colour-blindness affects 1 in 200 women in the world. Worldwide, there are approximately 300 million people with colour blindness, almost the same number of people as the entire population of the USA!
By 2050 one in six people in the world will be over 65 (16%), up from one in 11 in 2019 (9%) (World Population Prospects: the 2019 Revision)
Millions of people around the world use assistive technology, such as screen readers, magnifiers, captions, or even a plain old keyboard with no mouse. If you can incorporate this level of awareness into your Development, QA and UX design teams, they’ll build better online services as well as a stronger company ethos.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Madgex and inclusive design
There are now more jobs available than ever, and corporations are struggling to find qualified workers, meaning that accessibility is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ feature but a ‘must-have’.
This is one of many reasons why we take this element of design so seriously and integrate it into everything we do.
The reality is that people often don’t know where to start when it comes to making their products or services accessible. We understand that there is a lot to it, so it’s still often not truly integrated into design and development processes yet, often becoming an afterthought to be dropped or not applied properly. Sometimes it’s good to hear what others do, to inspire what your business should be doing. At Madgex we have a commitment to making our products as inclusive as possible and we will talk you through how we approach inclusivity and accessibility for Career Centers.
We’re working on embedding accessibility into team processes, product design and design thinking. We do this by reviewing our products and retaining in-house accessibility knowledge and awareness.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Our approach includes:
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Accessibility reviews and audits
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User testing with people with a disability
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Using the latest coding techniques, such as progressive enhancement and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)
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Accessibility resources and advice for clients
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Using existing accessibility standards and guidelines such as ISO 30071-1:2019
Accessibility of our Career Center
Madgex offer features such as ‘skip navigation’, video transcript upload and code that degrades gracefully to ensure that any information is accessible to assistive technologies, such as screen readers. This means that all features, whatever technology used, are available to all users whatever their ability or context. Our Career Center is a responsively designed platform with a higher level of accessibility than many other Career Center platforms. Our responsive web design aims to broaden access to include an ever- expanding multitude of devices and provide a flexibility that helps make the job hunting and the ad posting experience work for everyone.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
As well as our responsive design, we have a whole range of features we offer that provide natural accessibility including:
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Simplified forms that use natural language
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Larger text on content rich pages, such as the job detail
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Regular testing on different devices and screen sizes
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Research and AB testing to keep track of how audiences engage
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On request accessibility help page
We take stimulus from official-body guidelines and government produced papers to create and benchmark our products. There is a lot of information out there so next up we cover the standards you should be looking into.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Accessibility Guidelines
The existing guidelines and standards for accessibility.
Many countries have different laws and approaches concerning accessibility, but the de-facto international standards acting as guidelines are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). In 2019 USA and Europe came together in agreement that the level of accessibility required by government agencies should be WCAG (AA). This was a welcomed harmonization and a big step for global accessibility.
These guidelines are there to help us to comply with disability discrimination laws and to make our services accessible to all.
The WCAG act as a shared technical standard for web content accessibility. They are a collection of the most important user-needs, combined with suggested technical solutions that have been found to meet the accessibility needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Put simply, these guidelines provide three levels of accessibility achievement.
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Level A – Basic standard to achieve legality
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Level AA – Medium standard
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Level AAA – Highest standard
There are also international standards for public sector businesses to embed inclusive design and accessibility into their “business as usual” processes.
The ISO 30071-1 Code of Practice for creating accessible ICT products and services was released on 28th May 2019 and supersedes the British Standard BS 8878 and Section 508 for the US. This isn’t a replacement for the WCAG, but is a framework to ensure that all aspects of an organization’s activities which impact accessibility & inclusion are covered. We understand that all this is a bit complicated, but it’s essential to know! We recommend that you research what these are and use them as an outline for your inclusivity strategy. These practices and laws are in place, so understanding the ramifications is important. Recently in the US, employers with non- compliant job descriptions have been required to pay large fines as their job ads discriminated against people with disabilities. Under ADA laws, employers are required to reasonably accommodate an applicant with a disability. This makes it critical to produce job ads that avoid bias towards ability, gender, race and age. So, next up, we’re taking a look at the business implications of accessible and inclusive design.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
The business impact of accessibility and inclusion for Career Centers
So, how can you improve business as a Career Center owner or as an employee of an association considering one? Well firstly, if you pick us as your provider, we’ve made things a lot easier for you by making sure that your Career Center naturally has a good level of accessibility. Career Centers need to keep their services as open and inclusive as possible. Many candidates with a disability get left behind in the hiring process due to limitations. They often find that they can’t apply or register on sites, which is discriminatory and exclusive. Being inclusive can both attract and retain customers. As a business, you shouldn’t risk excluding customers by making access to content or services, exclusive.
The commercial case
Being inclusive isn’t just altruistic, it’s the commercially smart option. Most businesses want to attract and appeal to the widest possible market, so why reduce the share of that market through lack of consideration for everyone?
In 2021, the business case for web accessibility couldn’t be stronger. In 2020, Accenture found that the 45 companies it identified as leaders in areas specific to disability employment and inclusion had, on average, 28% higher revenue, double the net income, and 30% higher economic profit margins than their peers.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
A market bigger than China, the Disability Market influences over $13 trillion in annual disposable income.
The ethical case
By enabling your services to become accessible to the widest possible audience there are undoubted economic benefits, but also the feel-good factors, that results from taking an ethical approach.
Businesses need to protect and enhance their brands, a clear commitment to accessibility can demonstrate that a business has a genuine sense of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It is notable that many large, successful companies such as Google, Apple and IBM invest a lot in inclusive design and accessibility, but you don’t have to be a fortune 500 business to implement an inclusive strategy. Even the smallest changes can make a huge impact and give you something extra to align to your brand offering.
The legal case
Accessibility goes beyond a moral and ethical imperative, being accessible also fulfills important legal requirements. It is necessary for service providers to achieve certain standards of accessibility or risk prosecution. The international accessibility guidelines referred to earlier, can help you to comply with the disability discrimination laws that many countries have.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
For example…
The Equality Act 2010 is an Act of Parliament in the UK and protects against discrimination, harassment and victimization in employment and as a user of public and private services. This has replaced the UK 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
The US Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990, prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life. In 2018, new regulations came into effect expanding ADA compliance to the WorldWide Web.
The ADA applies to organizations and businesses that deal with or rely on the general public. This includes all local, county, state, and federal government agencies, privately run companies that have 15 or more employees and non-profit and charitable organizations which either have 15 or more employees or operate for the benefit of the general public. If you fit into this category then always have inclusivity at the forefront of your organizational strategy, like we do.
Florida grocery chain Winn-Dixie lost a court case after a blind user was unable to access its website. The prosecutor’s lawyers successfully arguing that this violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The lawsuit is one of an increasing number filed over website accessibility in recent years, including Domino’s and Beyonce’s website in 2019. In 2020, more than 3,000 such suits were filed in federal courts, according to the accessible technology firm UsableNet. This is up almost 25% year-on-year.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
2020
2019
In 2020 UsableNet tracked 3,550 lawsuits. A 23% increase from 2019 and almost 10 lawsuits every business day. Post Covid lockdown, the lawsuit filing rate increased more than 50%.
ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuit s 2020 - UsableNet
The threat of legal fines is much higher in the US than any other country. The highest number of cases were in the US states of NewYork and California.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
How do I measure the impact of an inclusive design?
Increased traffic and membership engagement
SEO
Most websites contain on average 90% text and for Career Centers that percentage is naturally higher. It’s important to structure your content so that the most significant information is easy to reach and make sure everything is simple and easy to read or scan efficiently. Small screens can make it difficult to access information and particularly difficult to write or input information.
Accessible design and practice have a direct, positive impact on the general usability and SEO of a site. It’s good to remember that people are accessing your services in many situations, contexts and environments.
Search engines look favorably on accessible websites and it can be easier for them to crawl the pages of sites that are accessible and well structured.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Upcoming generations, who are our future jobseekers, increasingly expect everything to be available on mobile devices. 98% of Generation Z, who are the under 24s now, own a smartphone and 52% report that their smartphone is their most important internet device. They want to search, research and apply quickly for jobs on their mobiles, when it’s right for them. Adding to this, they are using different devices, with different screen sizes. We’re now living in a world where mobile is ubiquitous, and usage continues to increase. In 2019, on average between 50 - 60% of visits to our Career Centers are made using mobile devices. This has been increasing year-on-year.
Therefore, you can make your business more successful by investing in accessible omni-device design as it makes information and facilities more available and serviceable to users, no matter the medium.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Membership engagement
There are many approaches to building and maintaining member loyalty in today’s competitive market - and as you’ll have worked out by now, accessibility is a great one.
Associations often have a diverse and broad membership. Association membership creates a natural loyalty and deeper engagement than other Career Centers so it’s important to maintain that level and also, where possible, increase it by offering more value. By increasing you inclusive offering, you will be able to expand your audience and help them to achieve their desired goals. Ensuring that the main Career Center tasks like finding a job, applying for a job and posting a job are accessible, as easy as possible and require the least amount of input and effort will keep your audience coming back.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
How do we maintain inclusive services?
It’s crucial that you don’t risk your website falling below minimum accessibility standards. Here are a few basic principles that will help you maintain inclusive services… 1. A general in-house understanding and awareness of accessibility and the value it holds is a good starting point in maintaining accessibility. Training for staff so they aware of the basics, new developments and how to become advocates, is a good place to start.
2.
Many Association Career Centers are more like career centers, so engaging your members with quality content is one way to provide a richer advisory service. Guidelines for how to create accessible content and regular reviews to check accessibility would also be useful. Writing for accessibility goes way beyond making everything on the page available as text. It also affects the way you organize content and the way you guide readers through a page. Have a look through the below checklist and considering the following when creating accessible content:
• Make sure everything is readable. Review colors in particular, do they provide sufficient contrast for text to be readable?
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
• Is the language simple enough? Would it make sense to everyone, whatever their cognitive ability?
• Could someone quickly scan the content and understand the information? Is it structured well?
• If someone can’t see the colors, images or video, is the message still clear? Do videos need captions or alternative text?
• Does it work well on mobile? Over 50% of your visitors will be looking at the content on a mobile device with a small screen.
• Do you have alt tags on images that need to convey meaning to your audience?
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It’s imperative to include your brand. There may be small compromises in your branding if you find it affects the readability of information on your site.
Last but not least, always keep your users in mind. Know who they are and what they want. Provide for a diverse audience and aim to make every offering accessible to anyone using a screen reader, keyboard navigation, or Braille interface, and to users of all cognitive capabilities.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
The future of Inclusive Design for Career Centers
In an ideal world all design would be creating experiences that fit each person regardless of physical ability, cognitive ability, social context and environment.
One day, inclusive design will become mainstream and ‘just the way we work’, ceasing to be discussed as something separate from design or product development.
To move towards this, we should all be embedding inclusivity and diversity into our cultures, not marginalizing it or only including it if we have the time. We should remember inclusivity is a business benefit and not something we need to adopt because of the fear of lawsuits. Though, let’s be honest, that fear can be the main driving force.
Just try to remember one thing. Customers and employees prefer companies that invest in inclusive design and provide services that are accessible, cohesive, and sustainable for all.
So, don’t be the last people to join the party and think about how your service, offering, engagement and design can benefit from being inclusive.
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
I’m passionate about accessibility, not just because I believe in a level playing field, but because (it) makes life more livable for everyone “ ” Eve Andersson, Director of Accessibility Engineering, Google
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Madgex | Inclusive Design and Accessibility for Job Boards
Let’s do a quick recap on all of the benefits, of making your website more accessible (and what you should be looking at to measure impact)…
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Increase your audience and profits
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Improve usability
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Make your site work better on hand-held devices
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Make it easier for search engines to crawl your site and index it
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Create positive PR and enhance your brand
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Increase customer satisfaction and minimize customer support
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Decrease legal risk
Resources
https://styleguide.mailchimp.com/writing-for-accessibility/ http://wave.webaim.org/ https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/international https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#new-features-in-wcag-2-1 https://www.hassellinclusion.com/blog/inclusive-design-mainstream-benefit/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/
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