An open source project that opens the internet for all

Equalify is an open source project with the goal of making the open internet more accessible.
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Plumeria by Bernard Spragg

"Plumeria (Frangipani)" by Bernard Spragg is marked with CC0 1.0.

Accessibility is key to promoting an open society.

We learn online. We bank online. Political movements are won and lost online. Most importantly, the information we access online inspires us to make a better world. When we ignore accessibility requirements, people born without sight or who lost limbs in war are restricted from online information that others enjoy.

We must ensure that everyone has access to the open internet, and I am doing my part to work toward that goal by building Equalify.

What is Equalify?

Equalify is "the accessibility platform."

The platform allows users to run multiple accessibility scans on thousands of websites. With our latest version, users can also filter millions of alerts to create a dashboard of statistics that are meaningful to them.

The project is just getting started. Equalify aims to open source all the premium features that expensive services like SiteImprove provide. With better tools, we can ensure that the internet is more accessible and our society is more open.

How do we judge website accessibility?

W3C's Web Accessibility publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) report that sets standards for accessibility. Equalify, and others, including the US Federal Government, use WCAG to meter website accessibility. The more websites we scan, the more we can understand the shortcomings and potentials of WCAG standards.

How do I use Equalify?

Take a few minutes to browse our GitHub and learn more about the product. Specifically, the README provides steps on how to begin supporting and using Equalify.

Our goal

Our ultimate goal is to make the open internet more accessible. 96.8% of homepages do not meet WCAG guidelines, according to The WebAIM Million. As more people build and use Equalify, we combat inaccessible pages. Everyone deserves equal access to the open internet. Equalify is working toward that goal as we work toward building a stronger and more open society for all.

Blake Bertuccelli portrait in front of green leaves.
I like to think of myself as "radically open." I keep track of many of my activities and operating principles in an open notebook, where I also log my work to create an ethical business

4 Comments

An interesting read. However, have you tried to print (to PDF or anything else) this article? Using Firefox it includes the 'social bar' popup (the thing with twitter, facebook, etc icons) at the bottom of every page, obscuring text and content. Not very 'accessible' to me. It's always best to clean your own house before complaining about the dirt in other houses.

Thank you for the feedback. The author is not responsible for the accessibility of the site.

 

Cleaning up PDFs is on our list of future fixes for making Opensource.com more accessible.

 

In reply to by jedimmel

If you're using Firefox, use Ctlr+Alt+R to switch to Reader View. Then you can print the page or send to PDF without all the popup stuff.

Alternatively, you can use an RSS reader rather than a browser and create a PDF from there.

Also, I don't believe the author or this site are claiming perfection in accessibility. The point is that someone is working towards better accessibility for all.

 

In reply to by jedimmel

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.