Government Issue(s): Leveraging Accessibility with Usability to Serve *Really* Diverse Audiences

In discussions about accessibility and diversity, our thoughts tend to jump to ARIA links, screen readers, and people of different ethnicities. While these are key aspects to both topics, this talk will push your thinking to considerations beyond accessibility and diversity basics. At its core, embracing accessibility provides us with a launching ramp to usability, and it helps us to serve and support a variety of users. Tearyne will detail her experiences creating user interfaces and experiences for the myERF user portal and with her teammates across ERF’s digital and print communication channels. Some of the topics she’ll cover are

• Why accessibility is not just about accommodating disabilities, but core to creating a foundation for robust user experiences
   
• Designing for audiences with different access to the internet – from different devices to no home or mobile internet access at all
   
• Designing for users with different abilities, such as computer skill levels, education, and language proficiency
   
• Providing content for audiences of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds
   
• Focusing on developing end-to-end experiences that ensure that your site, publications, and person-to-person experiences are accessible for diverse audiences
   
• Using analytics data, user feedback surveys, and one-on-one interactions to improve your products