What’s Happening: Websites and Disabilities with Jaime Mackey
Welcome to my “News and Events” Blog! As a doula and childbirth educator, an amazing part of my job is to not only provide my clients with the information needed for them to make informed decisions, but to connect them with professionals with the skills and knowledge to make those decisions a reality. I am incredibly passionate about my own continued education and spend a lot of time attending webinars, classes, and other birth working events! There are so many, extremely unique, and wonderful people filled with passion for every step of your birth journey hosting amazing events, both virtual and in-person, for pregnant persons and birth workers to connect and learn! Today, I would like to introduce you to one of them, Jaime Mackey.
There are a lot of small business owners here in the United States. 30.2 million of them according to 99 Firms. Many of these businesses depend on online sales and/or marketing. In fact, e-commerce is projected to grow by 20% in 2021 according to SBA.gov. These businesses, unable to afford purchasing an expensive website design, build themselves pretty websites with pretty pictures and stylish font. A mistake, according to Jaime Mackey, that leaves many potential customers simply unable to interact with their websites.
Jaime is a happily married mother of two with an adorable family dog named Clara. She has eight years of experience as a programmer and volunteers at KC Women’s Ministry as their Director of Technology. Jaime is passionate about helping others, from her incredible volunteer work as a certified doula to helping me plant my first ever Victory Garden. Her technical world and serving world come together in her passion for website accessibility.
“Building a website with the sole purpose of making it look pretty excludes many users by making it harder for them to navigate and use,” Jaime writes, “When you design with inclusivity as the priority, you prevent excluding many demographics from your audience. Designing accessible webpages creates a more user friendly experience for all people as well as technologies(*ahem* search engines).”
You may be thinking, ‘okay, that sounds good. I’m all for inclusivity, but what does building an accessible website really mean?’
“So you've heard the buzzwords "Inclusivity" and "Accessibility" in a broad scope, but what does it have to do with building a website? I'm going to talk with you about
inclusion in relation to web design and
how the design of your website can make it more or less usable for people with short or long-term disabilities
as well as those in particular environments and situations.
You will learn how to evaluate the accessibility of your website and gain helpful tips to start making it usable for more people! ”
Why does this matter? According to the American Foundation for the Blind, 32.2 million Americans in 2018 reported having impaired eye site while wearing glasses or fully blind. Is your website set up to work with their braille display? Do the colors you use make it impossible for those who live with color blindness? Not having an inclusive and accessible website alienates those who live with disabilities like these everyday.
Not super tech savy? Me either. “This talk is designed for those with basic computer skills and no prior programming knowledge, who are utilizing online website builders to design their website.” Which is great news for me, because I definitely used a website builder for this site and would be completely lost trying to build my own!
Learn more at KC Women’s Ministry!
As always, thank you for reading and
God Bless!