Special Olympics logo.

Special Olympics of South Dakota is committed to providing a fully accessible website experience for all users of all abilities, including those who rely on assistive technologies like screen readers, screen enlargement software, and alternative keyboard input devices to navigate the web.

Ongoing Efforts to Ensure Accessibility

We follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 as our guiding principle for determining accessibility. These are internationally agreed-upon standards that cover a wide range of recommendations and best practices for making content useable. As we add new pages and functionality to our website, all designs, code, and content entry practices are checked against these standards.

Website accessibility is an ongoing process. We continually test content and features for WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance and remediate any issues to ensure we meet or exceed the standards. Testing of our website is performed by our team members using industry-standard tools such as the Accessibility Checker WordPress Plugin, color contrast analyzers, keyboard-only navigation techniques, and Flesch-Kincaid readability tests.

Accessibility Features On Our Website

The following is a list of items we have included in our website to improve its accessibility:

  • Our use of color was selected for color contrast and meet AA requirements.
  • Our website design has a mobile-responsive version with appropriately sized tap-targets.
  • All images and other non-text elements have appropriate alternative text associated with them.
  • A warning is provided before links open in a new tab or window.

Where We’re Improving

In our efforts to bring our website up to standard, we are targeting the following areas:

  • Navigational aids to be provided on all pages. Skip navigation links to be incorporated to facilitate keyboard navigation and to bypass content on a page, allowing users to jump directly to the primary navigation, main content, and footer.
  • Our website will declare a language in the header.
  • Structural markup will be included to indicate expected section containers, headings, lists, and buttons to make our content more understandable and “skim-able” by all users, regardless of device.
  • Forms will be associated with labels and instructions on filling in forms are available, along with clearly understandable error states.
  • Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA screen-reader only text will be present when links, buttons, icons, or images require additional context to understand their meaning.

This is part of our broader effort to make everyone’s experience at Special Olympics of South Dakota a welcoming and enjoyable one. Please note that while we make every effort to provide information accessible for all users, we cannot guarantee the accessibility of third party websites to which we may link.

Accessibility Support Contact

We welcome comments, questions, and feedback on our website. If you are using assistive technologies and are having difficulty using our website, please email jkvanli@sosd.org. We will do our best to assist you and resolve issues.