Accessibility of Lions web sites

[mdalions]

Hello All.

As a result of a chance discussion with Ryan Chin of the CNIB Lake St. Josephs Centre, I have decided we should add another cornerstone to the web technology policies and goals for MD"A".

I have always considered accessibility of web sites as one of the requirements of design. A web site should be usable by all, whether using a "normal" browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, or when using a textual browser such as Lynx, or text-to-speech synthesizer or braille reader. All web sites I have been involved with attempted to be friendly to sight-impaired persons.

I have reviewed the MD"A" sub-District sites and generally found them more or less usable, with the notable exception of two, which were totally unusable by the blind and sight-impaired. I e-mailed the webmasters / District Technology Chairs of these two Districts, in hopes that improvements can be made. One has already responded and is interested in doing what is possible to improve the situation.

I think that we should expand on the MD"A" web site guidelines to encourage all Lions web sites, whether Multiple District, sub-District or Club, to be welcoming to those using assistive devices when using a computer.

Input and comments welcome. This message is also posted on the Lions Open Forum at <http://mdalions.org/forums/>.