Is Your Parish Website Accessible?

Can a blind parishioner find your Christmas Mass times? Dom Bettinelli and Joanne Mercier take on parish website accessibility, from low-contrast text and pictures of schedules to CAPTCHAs and scanned bulletins.

Chapters:
0:00:00 Stinger
0:00:18 Intro
0:01:06 Your Parish Website Is the Front Door
0:03:09 A Parishioner Who Can’t Get In
0:04:16 Who Actually Visits a Parish Website
0:06:12 How People Use Your Website
0:07:51 Disability by the Numbers
0:08:41 The WebAIM Million: Most of the Web Fails
0:11:00 No Law Requires It; the Church Asks Anyway
0:12:42 The Church’s Own Words: USCCB, Francis, Benedict
0:15:26 Low-Contrast Text
0:17:24 Contrast Ratios and Free Checkers
0:18:21 Text Trapped in Images
0:20:10 Alt Text, and Letting AI Write It
0:21:46 What Screen Readers Do with Video
0:23:27 Use Real Headings
0:25:10 Links and Buttons That Say Nothing
0:26:10 The Keyboard Test
0:27:54 Website Vendors and Templates
0:28:30 Registration and Giving Forms
0:29:35 Form Labels
0:31:02 CAPTCHAs
0:32:34 Password Managers and Paste
0:33:46 Ask Vendors for an Accessibility Conformance Report
0:35:12 Captions for Recorded Video
0:40:11 The Bulletin PDF Problem
0:43:16 Publish in HTML, Not PDF
0:44:15 Myths vs. Reality
0:46:56 Practical Takeaways
0:49:29 SQPN.com Has Work to Do Too
0:49:55 Patron Thanks
0:50:37 Picks of the Week
0:50:42 Joanne’s Pick: Kasa Outdoor Smart Plug
0:54:20 Dom’s Pick: Cotypist
0:58:53 Outro

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