Everyone is welcome on CreativeGround. Equity, Diversity, Intersectionality, and Accessibility is one of our values and we strive to ensure that both the technology and the resources of the platform are accessible to all.
The site is free and available for professional creative entities of all kinds, regardless of their years of experience or previous investment in their work. Self-taught as well as institutionally trained artists/creatives over 18 are welcome. We aim to reduce as many barriers as possible – technical and otherwise – so that everyone using CreativeGround is empowered to take full advantage of its benefits. We provide technical assistance to any profile manager through various channels and using various methods.
We intentionally spotlight a wide range of profiles on the homepage and in promotional materials. We include fields on profiles and in Search that uplift how the arts are welcoming more audiences by providing accommodations to participants and artists, and we work to make the site language and functionality user-friendly on a variety of devices. Let us know if you have additional ideas of accommodations to help you and your neighbors feel welcome.
We are aiming for the highest level of web accessibility possible for CreativeGround, which is AA according to WCAG 2.1. AAA standards are challenging for a site with user-generated media content over which we have no control. However, we have made alt text required on all images, including those uploaded by users.
We used an accessibility assessment of the previous Drupal 7 site by Accessibility Partners to identify areas of concern for improvement through the upgrade to Drupal 8.
Our website developers, Last Call Media, included an accessibility expert on their team and used the WAVE tools to build the Drupal 8 site and continually check functional accessibility of features in desktop, tablet, and mobile versions.
Site accessibility is not an end point, but an ongoing commitment to learning and improvement. There is known work still to be done:
The team will do continuous vetting with the help of NEFA's Accessibility Committee (and your feedback) at least twice a year formally, and more informally with every new piece of functionality that we implement and test.
How can we do better in making the CreativeGround site and community accessible to you? Please contact us, or NEFA's Accessibility Coordinator.