Accessibility in Your Vanilla Community - Vanilla Success
<main> <article class="userContent"> <p><strong>Accessibility</strong> involves making websites easier to use for persons with disabilities (such as vision and physical impairments). Accessibility laws require that a person with disabilities be able to use a website with software that reads aloud the site's content and/or using only a keyboard.</p><p><strong>Higher Logic Vanilla</strong> (<strong>Vanilla</strong>) is committed to making our platform as accessible as possible, and making it easier for you to maintain accessibility-compliance in your Vanilla community throughout its lifespan.</p><h2 data-id="accessibility-information">Accessibility information</h2><p>Vanilla provides the following links as a courtesy to aid you in being accessibility-compliant. We encourage you to:</p><ul><li>become familiar with these regulations and policies,</li><li>use the appropriate guidelines to ensure your community sites are accessible, and</li><li>periodically review the applicable guidelines for updates.</li></ul><p><strong>📝 NOTE</strong>: Vanilla is not responsible for the content of the following links.</p><ul><li><strong>World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)</strong>: <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG2AA-Conformance" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2</a></li><li><strong>United States</strong>: <a href="https://www.ada.gov/" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)</a>; Rehabilitation Act of 1973, <a href="https://www.section508.gov/" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">Section 508</a></li><li><strong>Canada</strong>: <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/accessible-people-disabilities/act-summary.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">Summary of the Accessible Canada Act</a>; <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/A-0.6/" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">Accessible Canada Act (ACA)</a> (full text); <a href="https://www.aoda.ca/" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)</a></li><li><strong>European Union</strong>: <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">European Accessibility Act</a></li></ul><p>📝 <strong>NOTE</strong>: Higher Logic believes Vanilla to be <strong>Section 508</strong> and <strong>WCAG Level AA</strong> compliant.</p><h2 data-id="accessibility-measures">Accessibility measures</h2><p>Vanilla takes the following measures to ensure compliance in our interface. Feel free to use these measures as a starting point for your accessibility program.</p><p>📝 <strong>NOTE</strong>: If you notice an area in which Vanilla could improve its accessibility, please contact Vanilla Support (<a href="unsafe:support@vanillaforums.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">support@vanillaforums.com</a>) or <a href="http://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/issues" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc">file an issue</a>.</p><ul><li>Our default user interface is primarily text-based and high-contrast.</li><li>Our interface is keyboard-friendly.</li><li>We limit the use of colors, images, and symbols as navigation aids and as primary content.</li><li>We use modern HTML5 markup and accessible forms.</li></ul><p>📝 <strong>NOTE</strong>: Vanilla does not regulate the content of customers' Vanilla communities and cannot control the accessibility of user-generated content therein.</p><h2 data-id="accessibility-in-your-theme">Accessibility in your theme</h2><p>Most Vanilla communities have a customized theme. Keep in mind that customizations can have a large, and possibly detrimental, impact on the accessibility of the community.</p><p>The choices of fonts, font colours, and font sizes are obvious considerations, but because our theming engine also allows for the override of HTML markup, it’s important to consider that individual communities may vary wildly in their degree of accessibility.</p><p>Conversely, themes can also augment the interface to improve Vanilla’s core accessibility.</p><div class="js-embed embedResponsive" data-embedjson="{"body":"Higher Logic (Vanilla Forums) is committed to making its software usable by all people by meeting or exceeding the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA (WCAG 2.1 AA). We have engaged Level Access, an accessibility consulting company, to conduct an accessibility audit of our software and…","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6030677\/uploads\/VWGAXAF5OFCO\/microsoftteams-image.png","url":"https:\/\/success.vanillaforums.com\/kb\/articles\/515","embedType":"link","name":"Vanilla Forums Accessibility Statement - Vanilla Success"}"> <a href="https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/515" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc"> https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/515 </a> </div><h2 data-id="further-reading">Further reading</h2><div class="js-embed embedResponsive" data-embedjson="{"body":"Free tools to test if your website is accessible. These tools test accessibility by referencing accessibility guidelines","photoUrl":"https:\/\/usabilitygeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/website-accessibility-evaluation-tools-lead.jpg","url":"https:\/\/usabilitygeek.com\/10-free-web-based-web-site-accessibility-evaluation-tools\/","embedType":"link","name":"8 Free Web-Based Website Accessibility Evaluation Tools - Usability Geek"}"> <a href="https://usabilitygeek.com/10-free-web-based-web-site-accessibility-evaluation-tools/" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc"> https://usabilitygeek.com/10-free-web-based-web-site-accessibility-evaluation-tools/ </a> </div><div class="js-embed embedResponsive" data-embedjson="{"body":"Tips on making your site available to every person and every device: from networked gadgets to screen readers, desktop browsers to web-enabled TVs. ARIA and progressive enhancement. Contrast is kin…","photoUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alistapart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/cropped-icon_navigation-laurel-512.jpg?fit=512%2C512&ssl=1","url":"https:\/\/alistapart.com\/blog\/topic\/accessibility\/","embedType":"link","name":"Accessibility – A List Apart"}"> <a href="https://alistapart.com/blog/topic/accessibility/" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc"> https://alistapart.com/blog/topic/accessibility/ </a> </div><p><br></p> </article> </main>