On October 19th and 20th in Tornik hotel on Zlatibor, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) organized a conference Examples of good practices and social protection services at the local level. The conference, which became a central gathering event for everyone from the social and public sphere, also hosted our team from PaprikArt.
Previous cooperation
Cooperation with GIZ has been ongoing since the middle of 2020. At the time our agency participated in a successful websites development project for ten Social Service Centres across Serbia. Since then, we have been working on finding effective solutions for the permanent improvement of living conditions all over Serbia. At the beginning of 2022, there was a need for new websites, as well as for the improvement of the existing ones, bearing in mind that websites should be digitally accessible according to WCAG level AA rules.
How to achieve digital accessibility?
During the second day of the conference, our colleague Miloš Kocić, a WordPress developer, held a presentation on “Digital accessibility of service providers’ websites”. The main focus of the presentation was on ensuring that all users of the Social Service Centres have access to important information and use centres’ websites without any difficulties by adjusting accessibility tools. In addition to the necessary information about the digital accessibility of the site and the conditions that such a site must meet, Miloš presented one of the completed sites, and demonstrated live how a website can be digitally accessible to people with disabilities.
The existing websites created for the needs of the Social Service Centres were additionally upgraded by implementing accessibility tools. Thus, partially sighted and blind people, as well as people with low hand mobility, can use the websites without difficulties.
The accessibility tool that has been implemented contains several key things, such as the ability to increase or decrease the font size, choose between dark and light themes, and adjust contrast. This helps people suffering from photosensitivity to use the site without problems. All settings chosen by the user remain saved even after closing the browser, until the point when the users themselves change or reset the settings.
The tool also allows the users to use the web page only via the keyboard with the possibility of going directly to the content. Also, people with low hand mobility can move through the content of the page using only one finger. What is also important is that the digitally accessible site includes an option that launches a screen reader that reads the links in the correct order.
At the very end, with the help of the WCAG checker, which reviews aspects of the site’s content and whether it is adapted to people with disabilities, the Centre’s site was checked and marked as digitally accessible.
Invitation for further cooperation
After Miloš’s presentation, Rada Divac from CSS Prijepolje thanked our team for the excellent cooperation, focusing on quality and accessibility. During that time she also presented the website of the Association of Centres for Social Service of Serbia. Tatjana Rajniš, GIZ project manager and moderator of the conference, invited all those interested to create digitally accessible websites with the help of our agency.
