Disability Rights Advocates: WCAG AAA Accessible Website Design, Logo Design, Production

Client Overview

Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) is a non-profit law firm dedicated to protecting and advancing the civil rights of people with disabilities. DRA advocates for disability rights through high-impact litigation, as well as research and education.

Website Redesign Project Scope

www.dralegal.org (opens new window)

Due to DRA's wide range of user demographics, it was determined the redesigned website should be accessible to the largest audience possible by adhering to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Priority 3 (AAA) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and by designing a simple user interface employing straight forward, easy-to-use navigation. Additionally, the client desired a warm color palette, specifying a shade of red to be used as the predominant color. Finally, a design priority would be to facilitate easy and efficient maintenance.

Website Redesign Solution and Implementation

Collaborint designed an accessible website with a pleasing, user-friendly interface while displaying the main content's black text on a white a background for maximum contrast and readability. For ease of maintenance, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), an open source, server-side scripting language, was used for dynamically generated navigation.

Accessible Website Design Highlights

Various types of navigational aids are provided throughout the site including: "Skip Navigation", "Help", "Site Map", "back to top", and "Site Search"
All navigation and text is styled using CSS, enabling the user to resize text according to personal preference
Minimal use of imagery results in faster loading web pages, especially for dial-up users
An alternative, print-friendly style sheet is available for all files

Additional Production Features

Section 508 Compliant
WCAG Priority Level 3 (AAA) conformance
Design is completely separated from structure using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and standards compliant Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0 Transitional
Efficient website maintenance is facilitated by extensive use of CSS combined with a single template design and PHP to dynamically generate navigation.

Additional Information

Web Accessibility Services
Website Design Services
W3C WCAG Checklist of Checkpoints (new window opens)

“From helping us write the RFP to designing a new logo and supporting us with art/content management, web accessibility, and technology, Collaborint was always available to answer our questions, offer suggestions and to work with us to develop a unique, accessible website. We loved the process and are delighted with the end results.”

Stefanie Cox
Outreach Coordinator
Disability Rights Advocates