Government-Focused Communication Firm Turns to Disabled Accessibility Testers to Create Accessible Products
Minneapolis, Minnesota (PRWEB) December 16, 2013 -- GovDelivery is the leading provider of government-to-citizen communication solutions designed to help government organizations reach, inform and engage stakeholders more effectively. WeCo is a mission-based accessibility firm which provides human-based user-experience testing by employing individuals living with disabilities to deliver their services. Both companies share a goal of creating and verifying that the formats many government agencies use to engage the public, such as information updates and emergency alerts, are useful to people who live with a wide variety of disability types, such as those that are sight, hearing, motor skill and cognitive-related.
Government organizations are under increasing pressure to follow website and e-communication accessibility laws, such as the Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and international standards, such as the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG.) The GovDelivery and WeCo partnership provides GovDelivery’s clients the assurance that GovDelivery’s communications platform meets the requirements of accessibility legislation and standards worldwide.
WeCo’s unique approach to testing websites and e-communication products with human testers who live with disabilities is an innovative approach in a field that previously offered software-based accessibility testing as a primary answer to the accessibility question.
GovDelivery Vice President of Product Development, Jeremy Greene, notes, “WeCo’s approach of engaging people who live with disabilities to test our products means we receive the actual knowledge and insights of our end-user. GovDelivery is focused on providing products that proactively meet the needs of our public-sector clients and this includes ensuring government communications are accessible to people, regardless of their abilities or disabilities.”
“Many of our clients share with us that they are concerned by the limitations of accessibility software testing,” WeCo President, Lynn Wehrman, elaborated. “What they seek is real-life user feedback, not just a digitized report that can contain any number of false responses which don’t bear out for the real person living with a disability. We’re pleased to have the ability to assist GovDelivery in making the message many government agencies send to their taxpayers, accessible to people living with disabilities.”
About WeCo:
Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, WeCo is a mission-based, for-profit organization which believes that individuals living with disabilities become experts at access simply by navigating their day-to-day lives. The WeCo Accessibility Test Platform enables these individuals to put their life experience to work to help make web sites and electronic communications more accessible for everyone. WeCo is recognized by the State of Minnesota as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. In WeCo’s first year in business they were featured in the MarketWatch Wall Street Journal, Google Finance and Tech{dot}MN. Find more about the company at theweco.com.
Toni Grundstrom, The Wehrman Collaborative, http://theweco.com, 855-849-5050 Ext: 5, [email protected]
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