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This section is part of the Introduction to Accessibility ebook content.
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Consider: what do you mean?
When we say “accessibility”, we can mean different things. These things all overlap and can influence each other, but it is important to seek clarity in what we are discussing.
Are we talking about:
- Being able to easily discover a product, service, or some information?
- Being able to physically enter/exit or move around within a building?
- Being able to physically find a building or service point of contact? For example, public transit stations or stops may not be physically navigable in a wheelchair.
- Being able to afford the cost of services, entrance (like an event ticket), hardware, membership, school, or another economic factor?
- Being able to access information online (text size, information structure, keyboard navigation, etc)?
Improving one of these factors can improve others. For example:
If an event website improves its digital accessibility, it also can improve the rate of people discovering the event in the first place.
OR
If an event website improves its physical accessibility – for example, at the event venue – it might also improve discoverability and movement within the event, see more engagement, etc.
But clarifying what you mean helps.
That way, it’s more difficult to consider “a website that is accessible” as just one that’s discoverable on search engines, if you mean specifically whether the website information is accessible to someone with disabilities. If you mean discoverability in some sense, such as physical or economic, mention that. It might need only be mentioned at the first mention, or brought up only once in a conversation, but this helps to clarify what you mean – and in what other ways accessibility might help, or in what other ways you still need to consider.