National Industry for the Blind
A multi-year relationship spanning several accessible sites, built for the nation's largest employer of people who are blind.
- Engaged
- 2016
- Engagement
- Multi-year
- Platform
- WordPress, Next.js
- Sector
- Nonprofit
The Brief
An accessible rebuild, for an organization that lives accessibility every day.
NIB is the nation’s largest employer of people who are blind, and its website needed to practice what the organization preaches. The first engagement was a single project: move off an aging Drupal site and rebuild it on WordPress, accessible to the people who visit it and the staff who run it. Accessibility could not be a front-end coat of paint. NIB staff, who work at every level of vision, create and manage the content themselves, so the back-end needed just as much attention and compliance as the front-end.
The Solution
A first launch that grew into a lasting partnership.
We rebuilt the site on WordPress using WCAG AA and AAA standards, our strictest accessibility site to date. Then we stayed on to host and maintain the site and support the staff who managed it. Over the years that one project turned into several, including more WordPress work and a set of Next.js and React applications that hold the same accessibility bar as the original site. We managed the infrastructure behind all of it. One rebuild became a long-term partnership across the organization’s digital world.
Design & UX
Accessibility shaped-in from the first sketch.
We started by learning how the people who depend on NIB use the site, then shaped the experience around them. Their user base includes far more people who are blind or have low vision than a typical site, so accessibility was not a layer we added; it was the ground we built on, serving those users and everyone who can see the site alike. Color and contrast, focus order, keyboard paths, and screen reader semantics were design decisions from the first wireframe.
The rebuild
Off Drupal, and into an accessible WordPress build.
The original engagement was a full move from an aging Drupal site onto WordPress, built to a hybrid of WCAG AA and AAA standards. As we migrated the content, we simplified every post type and built every backend workflow to work with a screen reader, keyboard, or magnification. The result is a CMS their entire team can run themselves, at every level of vision. As WCAG evolved, we kept the site current with each new version as part of our continuous support.
Accessible development
Modern frameworks, held to the same accessibility bar.
As the relationship grew, the work moved beyond WordPress. We built new projects and applications for NIB in Payload CMS, Next.js, and React, all held to the same accessibility standard as the original site. Semantic markup, managed focus, and assistive-tech testing were part of the build, proving that a fast, modern stack and real accessibility can live in the same codebase.
Managed infrastructure
We hosted and cared for all of it.
We provided unified infrastructure management across all NIB sites, WordPress, Payload, and Next.js alike. That included managed cloud hosting, daily backups, uptime monitoring, and security updates, all backed by a dedicated support channel. As new projects launched, we brought them into the same managed environment, so NIB’s entire portfolio sat under a single team.
In their words
The relationship we formed with their team, it's not something that other organizations could buy or reproduce. It's based on their people, passion, and motivation to put out the best product possible.
Tech Stack
What it runs on.
WordPress. Payload, and a set of Next.js and React applications, all built to a strict accessibility standard and hosted in a managed cloud environment Materiell ran across the engagement.
Next Project
Arlington Public Schools
Forty-eight school sites and 200,000 pages, brought into one accessible platform that individual schools across the district can run themselves.
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