Newswise — The Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University's home on the web, bbi.syr.edu, has a new look! The new BBI website launched in conjunction with the 22nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, celebrated July 26. The website exemplifies BBI’s impact, with an emphasis on people who have benefited from BBI’s research, program development, and policy guidance. Another key component of the new site is the Innovation Areas section. This section allows visitors to easily identify BBI’s focus areas of work—Community Participation and Economic Participation—and access related resources.

“Because the website is BBI’s ‘front door,’ our goal was to create an engaging online presence with both visual appeal and ease of navigation,” says Anthony Adornato, BBI director of communications, who led the year-long website redesign project.

In keeping with the mission of BBI, the website was developed to provide a significant number of accessibility features. These features complement the use of assistive technologies and help make the site usable to the broadest possible audience. The website is Section 508 compliant, and it was tested under different viewing conditions (i.e. without a mouse, small or low-resolution screens, with voice or text output, and color contrast for those who have low vision or color-blindness).

The website redesign was a collaborative effort between BBI, SU Advancement & External Affairs-Technical Systems and Services, and designer Maribeth Rayfield.

About the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse UniversityThe Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University reaches around the globe in its efforts to advance the civic, economic, and social participation of people with disabilities. BBI builds on the legacy of Burton Blatt, former dean of SU’s School of Education and a pioneering disability rights scholar, to better the lives of people with disabilities. Given the strong ties between one’s ability to earn income and fully participate in their communities, BBI’s work focuses on two interconnected Innovation Areas: Economic Participation and Community Participation. Through program development, research, and public policy guidance in these Innovation Areas, BBI advances the full inclusion of people with disabilities. BBI has offices in Syracuse, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. For more information, visit bbi.syr.edu.