Organizations Work to Make Social Media More Accessible to Those with Disabilities

Workshop organized by Minnesota Access Alliance held at Aquarium.

DULUTH, Minn.- Organizations from across the Northland learned ways to make their social media accounts more accessible to people with disabilities.

The Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth was one of those organizations. The workshop was held there by Minnesota Access Alliance–a non-profit with a mission to raise the bar for accessibility in the state.

Today’s event focused on the use of alt-text which allows web authors to verbally describe images for people who are blind.

“If your mission statement has anything about including all people, then you better mean it, right?” said Samantha Smingler, Inclusion Coordinator at the Aquarium.

“So it means that if you’re posting a meme or you’re inviting people to an event, that you’re not actually inviting everybody if you don’t use alt-text.”

The workshop was recorded as a webinar which any business or organization can access on the Minnesota Access Alliance website.