At its 40th Anniversary celebration, Disability Rights California awarded Digital Deployment with its “Access Award” for its work on website accessibility, particularly for users with visual or intellectual disabilities.

Earlier this year, Digital Deployment had redesigned the DRC website to meet the highest accessibility standard, WCAG 2.1 AAA, which turned out to be quite challenging. The insights and content techniques learned in the process have since been integrated into Digital Deployment’s new standard Drupal content model, which powers many large institutional websites. 

The award was presented by Jeffrey Thom, a board member, Stanford-trained attorney, and long-time champion of disability rights. In presenting the award, Jeffrey, who is blind, challenged the audience. ”Consider how frustrated you would be if you went to your favorite website and you got just a blue screen with nothing on it,” he said. “This is the reality for many users with disabilities.”

The website was independently audited for accessibility by the Center for Accessible Technology, also known as CforAT. The center employs users with a wide array of disabilities to test sites and offer practical insights to improve usability in addition to rigorously testing the site against the AAA standards. 

As a company committed to empowering communication and connecting communities, there could be no higher honor.
—Mac Clemmens, CEO, Digital Deployment