How accessible is your web narrative? Reporting on the accessibility of a digital mediascape
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abstract
Universal access has come to be regarded as a human right (Greco, 2018) and thus leapt beyond traditional grounds. The crossroads between AVT and the concept of accessibility, particularly digital accessibility, implies that people with different abilities can understand, interact and navigate through, for instance, websites or other mediascapes. Although the accessibility of digital services has been traditionally the prerogative of web designers and akin professionals, the fact remains that digital accessibility requires the collaboration of a multidisciplinary team that work towards making written, spoken and visual messages accessible to the largest number of people, by means of adaptation, simplification, reinforcement, manipulation and translation. As such, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has set up a series of recommendations in its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 to make Web content more accessible to a wider range of people with different disabilities. In line with this international approach, the Portuguese government has also made efforts to improve accessibility to its websites and applications through the Law #83/2018, and launched a seal of accessibility and usability based on WCAG 2.1 to promote a wider accessible environment in Portuguese mediascape. Despite these efforts, Moreno (2014) claims that too many websites fail to provide accessible content, even when the existing guidelines are straightforward and easy to implement. Considering the above-mentioned, this paper will report on the ongoing master’s project that aims to turn an institutional website (i.e. festivalcinemacessivel.ipb.pt) into a fully accessible page, by intersecting AVT and MA along with digital accessibility and thus involving a multidisciplinary team.
