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Convince Your Clients of Accessibility: Arguments and Business Cases: Annelies Verhelst
Many agencies want to do right by disabled people. They want to make their clients’ websites accessible. Because, why wouldn’t you? And sure, many things you can do without even notifying your client. Have accessible building blocks, implement them in designs or code when the time is there to update anyway, only the people who need it will notice. Right? Wrong. Clients will find out, and they will confront you about it. And if you want to go even further? Oh no, the costs! The knowledge! The energy! It can be a struggle to convince your client to put in the effort and also conform to any regulation, like Section 508, the EU Accessibility Act, or otherwise.
Drawing from her own experience with “difficult” clients and some basic psychology, Annelies will provide you with compelling arguments and advice on how to make a business case (even if you really don’t want to go there).
About the Speakers
Annelies is a passionate digital accessibility expert at Accessibility Desk (Digitaal Toegankelijk – B Corp) in the Netherlands. She takes every opportunity to advocate for people with disabilities and others who can’t navigate the digital world properly. With her tech-background and work in marketing and communications for many years, she had already developed a thorough understanding of what should be done better and by whom. Her actual journey with accessibility started roughly 8 years ago, and since then, the topic has become a growing subject in work and life.
Annelies developed courses and workshops to educate different target audiences and make them understand how they can help. She loves sharing this knowledge within the WordPress community by speaking at local meetups regularly. As New Business Manager, she’s also co-leader of the European Accessibility Alliance. The European Accessibility Alliance is a network of leading digital accessibility experts and organizations across Europe dedicated to promoting and implementing digital accessibility standards. She’s also studying part-time for a Psychology major.
Event Information
Sponsors
Thank you to our sponsors:
- Live captions: Kinsta
- Organizer and post-event transcription: Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker
- Your Business here! Learn about sponsorship
Accessibility & Accommodations
This meetup will be held virtually over Zoom and live captioned, thanks to our sponsors. Slide links will be provided when applicable, and presenters are encouraged to make slides as accessible as possible with alternative text for images, etc.
We’re working to secure sponsors so that we can offer ASL interpretation.
All are welcome to attend. If you need specific accommodations to make this meetup work for you, please contact us and we will try our best to accommodate you.
Code of Conduct
Please note that this group is a welcoming space for all. As this event is part of the official WordPress Meetup program, all attendees must follow the WordPress Online Code of Conduct.
By RSVPing to this meetup, you agree to abide by these guidelines. If you have concerns that the Online Code of Conduct is not being followed, don’t hesitate to get in touch with an organizer.