ABCA enhances accessibility features on ABCA.org

The ABCA has added a web accessibility toolbar to its website, www.ABCA.org, that allows visitors to customize the site in a way that works best for them!

This new assistive technology, which can be launched by clicking the "Accessibility" link at the top of the website, will improve the experience of individuals with disabilities or impairments by allowing them to communicate and learn from the ABCA resources in a way that is beneficial to them!

The technology, which works on most modern browsers and requires no specific operating system, provides text to speech functionality, fully customizable styling, reading support aids and a translation tool with over 100 languages! Users can save their settings so that ABCA.org appears exactly as they need it every visit and does not affect the appearance or functionality for any visitors that do not wish to use the accessibility features.

The accessibility features are great for ABCA.org visitors with dyslexia, visual impairment, autism, ADHD, epilepsy, hyperlexia, language barriers and more!

In addition, the ABCA has added an option for closed captioning subtitles to all convention General Sessions and Youth Coaches Session clinics, including the 2021 videos!

How to Enable Accessibility Toolbar

1. Click the "Accessibility" button to the left of the social media icons at the top of www.ABCA.org
2. Once clicked, the toolbar will appear at the top of the webpage with a variety of accessibility tools. To learn more about all of the tools, see below!

How to Add Closed Captioning

1. Visit the ABCA Video Library
2. Select the convention clinic video you want to watch
3. On the "Play" toolbar, click the "CC" button on the bottom right-side of the video
4. Select "English CC"
5. Play Video

Check out all of the features below:

Translation

One in ten people don’t speak English as their first language. The new assistive toolbar quickly and easily translates ABCA.org into over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices. This means international coaches can read Inside Pitch Magazine, news releases and more in their native language!

Reading

774 million people in the world cannot read or write, and 10% of people have a learning disability, so reading content online can be a challenge for some people. To simplify and support our website visitors, our new technology has five main tools: 

• Ruler – to read line by line
• Reading Mask – to eliminate distraction
• Magnifier – to zoom in to sections of text
• Fully integrated dictionary and thesaurus on site
• Margins to reposition text in text-only

Styling

15% of the world's population are neurodivergent. The new assistive toolbar will allow people to change the way the ABCA website looks. Users are able to customize the website's color scheme as well as the texts font style, size, color, and spacing.

• Text size and color
• Website background color
• Text font type, including Open-Dyslexic
• Text only mode to eliminating all styling, much like a Word document

Screen Reader

285 million people worldwide have a visual impairment. Our screen reader will help website visitors to perceive and understand all of the ABCA's digital content by reading aloud website text, which can be customized to suit the viewer.

• All content read aloud in a natural voice
• 35 different language options
• Speed controls and Word by Word highlighting for total customization
• MP3 download to listen to content offline

Closed Captioning

All General Session and Youth Coaches Session on-demand videos from the Convention now feature the ability to add closed captioning subtitles while watching.