September 20, 2023
Pennsylvania Sea Grant is launching a brand-new website in collaboration with JPL, a multi-service creative company based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The site development and structural building blocks were all designed by JPL developers and graphic designers. The new site will maintain the domain URL address of https://seagrant.psu.edu.
The new site has been years in the making, with the overarching goal of making the site, content, and resources compliant with current online accessibility standards through the American Disabilities Act (ADA). The result is a visually engaging site that offers the best of both worlds, readability, and the ability to download content and resources for expanded use in the classroom, at outreach events and trainings, and more.
“We’ve been working toward a new, accessible site for several years. It’s a bigger challenge than any of us realized, and certainly takes time and a lot of thoughtful consideration toward what we are saying, how we are saying it, and how we visually display the work of Pennsylvania Sea Grant. I think we are on a good track toward making our site and content as accessible as possible,” explains Kelly Donaldson, Pennsylvania Sea Grant Communications Lead.
Resources available for download are somewhat limited, as many are undergoing accessibility review and/or are being re-designed to meet accessibility requirements. Visitors to the site are encouraged to use the “Contact Us” form to request access to resources that are not yet available. As the team makes its way through the accessibility compliance checks and re-designs, resources will be made available both as text web pages and as downloadable Adobe files.
“The best way to stay up to date on our available resources and progress is to visit the site at https://seagrant.psu.edu and join our newsletter,” Donaldson says. “In the meantime, we appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding, our goal is to make sense of science and make it accessible – for any audience!”
