The digital divide includes the tech design divide that keeps people who are using assistive technology or who have disabilities from being able to use web sites, software and other tech tools. But making your web site and other online services more accessible isn't just a nice thing to do: it makes a web site more accessible for potential customers, clients and donors, and demonstrates an organization's commitment to usability and accessibility to everyone. In addition, for a designer or programmer, knowing how to make a web site fully accessible makes you more competitive in the job market.

We saw a bunch of cool new tools at the conference.  It seemed like blogging was a very big deal for attendees thinking in new ways about communicating their mission-based work.  I was inspired to become hyper-alert to identifying accessible, equivalent tools and communication methods.  In that spirit, I offer EasyJournal as a tool that meets accessibility standards, but more importantly that opens up the blogging experience for millions.  The most well-known blogging tools may create accessible pages - usually mostly text, after all. The problem comes when someone - the student at the school for the blind, perhaps or the personnel administrator with quadriplegia - who can't use a mouse tries to post a blog.  It doesn’t work well.  It is difficult, perhaps impossible for the person with a disability to have the blogging experience using well-known tools because thecontent creation interface is not accessible.  The interface for EasyJournal was designed with accessibility in mind, however and you might consider trying it.  It’s free, it’s accessible, and it requires no additional software.