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Project Team
Kanopi Studios
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Community contributions
Several accessibility improvements were provided back to Core and contributed modules.
A strong vision for learning and literacy accessibility
The National Council for the Blind (NCBI) in Ireland is part of the Bookshare project by Benetech. The Council gives those with visual impairment reading barriers across the globe new opportunities for learning and literacy.
The Problem
NCBI is working to create accessibility for the nearly 1.3 billion people worldwide who live with some form of distance or near vision impairment. Despite doing important work in their field, they didn’t have a website, and no means to distribute content to their constituents in a digital format. They needed an easy way to make their materials available in online formats to support their goals and vision, and to have the site be AAA compliant, the highest possible compliance.
About the project
The Solution
Kanopi had already worked with Benetech to launch their Bookshare platform, so partnering with NCBI was a natural next step. Once the larger Bookshare platform was available, NCBI was able to take advantage of it to partner with publishers in Ireland and make their materials available on the platform.
Providing strategy, design, front and back-end development of the platform in Drupal, Kanopi was able to tailor Bookshare to NCBI’s needs and audiences to unlock the power of reading.
Heavy and frequent accessibility testing kept the site AAA compliant, following best practices on contrast ratios and appropriate font sizes, while also sourcing fonts that worked well for users with visual impairments. Accessibility testing carried through to development: all image fields provide alt-text, button sizes were checked, the content hierarchy was implemented to follow best accessibility practices, and templates are built to support the hierarchy.
Key Features
Search functionality
The search interface was customized to maximize the space dedicated to the book listings. In a logged-in experience, users are able to download the book straight from the list.
Accessibility and UX
We paid particular attention to the buttons on the site to ensure they’re easy to find visually and also easy to navigate to. Notice on mobile how the left aligned buttons are centered for easier access with a thumb.
Storytelling
On our 3 landing pages, we took time to choose images that reflected the community it serves.
The Result
By working with Kanopi, NCBI was able to make their content available in accessible online formats through the Bookshare project. With features that include searchable text, synchronized text and audio, highlighting, and customizable font size and contrast, NCBI is empowering people with reading barriers with new opportunities for learning and literacy.
NCBI now has a AAA compliant site, with 800,000+ titles available to users. This impressive metric was an important measure of success for the team, indicating that they were able to give their audience wide-spread accessibility and access to educational content.
Why Drupal was chosen
Because Kanopi had already built existing integrations with Bookshare, we worked with the preexisting technology with the existing integration.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
The site was built on top of Benetech’s Bookshare National Library project in order to reduce overall development time and get the site running on user-tested features prior to launch.
