Your conference website should be accessible and useful

If your website isn’t accessible or is missing critical info, there are people who can’t even get through the front door.

There are lots of good resources about web accessibility, so I won’t repeat the details here. The W3C accessibility guidelines (WCAG) are a good starting point; search around for other advice.

Some key things to consider:

• Is the font size sufficiently big? Does the layout break if I increase it?
• Is there enough colour contrast?
• Can you navigate the site without a pointing device?
• Does the site break if you disable JavaScript?
• Can I easily see/find links? Useful information?
• Do you have alt text for any informative images?

This needs to apply to all aspects of the conference site: the initial information, schedule, ticket buying, call for proposals.

At Monki Gras 2019, Lorna Mitchell’s talk flagged Typeform as completely inaccessible to keyboard-only users. Her example was a Call for Proposals that was done in Typeform – and since she can’t use the form, she won’t submit to that conference.

Here’s a basic list of information that should be easy to find:

• Information about the event: when is it, where is it
• Information about the venue (see also: write travel instructions)
• How to register for the event (sign up or ticketing)
• How to submit proposals
• Key dates: deadlines for buying tickets, submitting proposals, booking childcare
• The schedule
• The code of conduct