By Billy Reisinger, Senior Software Engineer, GovDelivery
GovDelivery is passionate about helping government entities reach their citizens through digital communications. We are in the business of spreading the word – and we want every single message recipient to be able to consume information easily and quickly. Most of the time, this means reading an email or text message. Sometimes, it’s watching a YouTube video. But what we forget is that many times, those folks to whom information is delivered are living with some sort of disability, and our government clients are mandated to make their communications accessible to every person regardless of ability.
As part of our mission to make our product accessible, we have an ongoing partnership with WeCo, a company that provides accessibility training and certification. It is striking to know that, according to WeCo, 20% of the active US workforce has some form of a disability. Given such a large percentage, it is critical to our business and our clients’ success that we build our products to be accessible from the start.
To that end, several of the technical, client support, and marketing staff here at GovDelivery recently participated in an informative training with several members of WeCo. They helped us assess and improve the accessibility of several of our technologies and provided thoughtful discussion on what kind of digital actions we need to be cognizant of from an accessibility standpoint. Not only is WeCo is an excellent resource for accessibility training, but they also employ experts in the field of accessibility – people with disabilities – to educate and test their clients’ products.
We’re excited about our ongoing partnership and how the work we do together can help government organizations distribute information as widely as possible and help those living with a disability receive information that they want or need. To that end, WeCo has recently launched a crowdfunding initiative on Indiegogo to spread the word on the unique and critical service they provide. If you’re passionate about accessibility, take a look and find out more about the important work they do.