Accessibility Drives Digital Freedom for All
Accessibility is prominent across user experience (UX) and development conversations for new products, features, services, and updates.
Mission
Human beings interact with and experience software differently. To ensure universal digital freedom, Acquia strives to design and develop tools with accessibility at the forefront.
Goals
Reach
AA conformance for all Acquia products and digital experiences.
Create
Inclusive experiences that provide digital freedom for users.
Promote
Diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of our business practices.
Reach Your Audiences and Drive Better ROI
US Brands that are not prioritizing accessibility are losing up to $6.9 billion annually to their competitors. It’s not just about compliance; accessibility is a stimulus for creating more engaging and productive digital experiences for ALL users.
In this video, Acquia’s CMO, Jennifer Griffin Smith, presents key strategies to grow your customer base, improve customer satisfaction/brand loyalty, and increase revenue.
Inclusive Design
At Acquia, we prioritize human-centered inclusive design practices in creating products and digital experiences. Designing for inclusion encompasses user diversity — language, gender, age, culture, ability, and more — while designing user-centered products and services.
Considerations to be inclusive:
- Impairments: Permanent, temporary, and situational
- Environment: Physical location and surrounding details
- Assistive tech: Tools to alleviate pain points caused by impairments and environment
Enablement
Building technology that's accessible for everyone is a natural extension of our corporate culture and inclusion-first mindset.
Drupal and the Acquia DAM have taken steps to ensure accessibility is top of mind through the design process. Checklists, scorecards, and leadership that values compliance has driven this direction.
Acquia Optimize enables organizations to work towards better website accessibility.
I've come to believe that accessibility is not something you do for a small group of people. Accessibility is about promoting inclusion. When the product you use daily is accessible, it means that we all get to work with a greater number and a greater variety of colleagues. Accessibility benefits everyone.
Dries Buytaert, Co-Founder, CTO, and Chief Strategy Officer, Acquia
Our Approach
Empathize
Focused on internal education and external informative support of embracing accessible practices.
Deliver
While a large percentage of our accessibility testing is manual, we use a combination of tools — Lighthouse, Siteimprove Accessibility Checker, and axe — to review accessibility. We’ve also incorporated VoiceOver and keyboard accessibility as part of our testing, and we’re looking to incorporate non-visual desktop access (NVDA) for screen reading.
Measure
Accessibility progress and compliance is regularly measured using various auditing tools, including Google Lighthouse. Our goal is that all Acquia applications will meet accessibility standards and maintain continuous compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA. We also publish an Accessibility Statement to highlight our commitment to ensuring that our communication channels, such as our website and other digital assets, are accessible.
Reaching AA Compliance
Acquia believes that accessibility is not about disability, but inclusion. It's about future-proofing and staying feature-rich as technology becomes more touch-friendly and voice-driven.
This mindset fuels our commitment to bringing all Acquia products in full compliance with WCAG 2.2 AA standards. We’ll continue to build on our existing accessibility processes and programs to ensure we meet this goal and continue to make our software the best possible experience — for everyone.