It's Global Accessibility Awareness Day and a range of the best builders are coming together to begin bringing accessibility awareness to Web3 in 2024!
Why Accessibility? 🤷♀
The goal of Web3 is to empower the many over the few. By decentralizing control and democratizing access, Web3 has the potential to level the playing field and empower individuals and communities worldwide.
But the new internet is currently excluding some major groups.
Web3 is often not accessible for the 20% of the population with disabilities and the 15-20% of folks with neurodiversity. This means that a significant portion of the population may be excluded from participating in and benefiting from Web3 technologies.
People with disabilities have an annual spending power of $13 trillion and are seeking solutions that are more accessible than the current Web2 landscape, where 96% of the top 1 million websites have major accessibility failures.
Web3 can be the solution!
What Is Accessibility? ♿
Accessibility in Web3 involves designing decentralized applications (dApps), blockchain interfaces, and digital assets that are fully usable by individuals with disabilities.
This includes compatibility with assistive technologies for navigation and interaction, such as keyboard-only controls and screen readers. And for things like NFTs, high contrast visuals, alternative text, and multimedia captions are essential for users with visual and hearing impairments.
For neurodiverse users, accessibility could look like clear navigation & simple language.
How Do We Improve? 🤔
At Hello Access we believe in sustainable long term change, so for the first year of accessibility we're focusing on encouraging Web3 to commit to awareness.
Year one actions:
Begin learning how people with disabilities & neurodiversity navigate the web.
Learning at least one best practice for building accessible experiences.
Engaging with the disabled and neurodiverse community by conducting at least one user test. And sharing that user test throughout the team and the company.
Join The Movement ✍
Subscribe
0.01 ETH p/month
By subscribing directly, you enable us to allocate funds to support our panel of users with disabilities, empowering them to assist more Web3 companies in improving their accessibility.
We're aiming to build out a section soon celebrating you, the builders who are contributing to accessibility.
Sponsor
0.3 ETH p/month
We'd love to showcase your company on the website as a sponsor & contributor towards accessibility.
Funds go directly towards helping us:
Conduct 300 accessibility audits and user tests, engaging underrecognized communities, and fairly compensating them for their valuable contributions.
Create a range of educational resources that builders & founders can tap into
Create a range of dev tooling to make accessibility easier to adopt
Build a range of Frames to engage & bring awareness to the Farcaster community
Accessibility Supporters 🎉
These builders and companies are leading the way in the journey toward accessibility:
Want to join this list as a company or an individual? Ping us on Warpcast or X.
Quotes ❞
"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."
Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web
“I think about living our mission, top of mind for me is how we must make Microsoft products accessible to the more than 1 billion people globally of all abilities. This is a shared goal. Universal design is central to how we realize our mission and will make all our products better.”
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
“Disability is an opportunity for innovation. Different experiences offers new perspectives, new insights, new ideas and these different ideas drive innovation. So if a company or organization wants to be innovative, they should have a diverse team which includes people with disabilities.”
Haben Girma, Disability Rights Lawyer and Speaker
Resources To Get Started 📚
Watch a user test we've done for Web3 companies and learn how a person with the lived experience of a disability navigates a website.
W3C's Perspective Videos (how folks with different disabilities navigate the web).
About Hello Access
In a world where 96% of websites are inaccessible to the 1 in 5 individuals with disabilities, we are embracing the spirit of Web3 to build a more equitable future. Through user tests and audits, we aim to enhance accessibility and create a more inclusive digital landscape.
We're a W3C member, creating the easiest place to conduct user tests, improve accessibility, achieve WCAG compliance, and connect with the audience you seek to serve.
https://www.helloaccess.xyz/
