Accessibility

Accessibility is about doing what we can to ensure our website or application can be accessed efficiently by people with disabilities. An added bonus, is that it usually improves the experience for everyone and not just those with disabilities.

To help us achieve this goal, W3C has created the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which goes over components and principles that help guide us towards accessible content.

Understanding what challenges can occur for people with disabilities will also help us improve the user experience. Some of the barriers that occur can be related to:

• Visual  (includes colour blindness)
• Auditory
• Physical
• Speech
• Cognitive
• Language
• Learning
• And Neurology.

Who are you designing for?

To help get a sense of who you are designing for, you can check out stories of web users with disabilities. In addition you can also see YouTube clips that will give you a walkthrough of peoples experience on the web.  

As a quick example, imagine Sally, she is not totally blind but she has very low vision. Due to her disability Sally uses a combination of assistive technology to see web content;

1. a  screen reader to translate the text on screen to speech
2. and screen magnification software to enlarge the texts and graphics on her computer and device screens for easier viewing.

In order for these technologies to work well for Sally, it is important that the developers, designers, and writers of the online content, follow the accessibility guidelines.

Quick guide to accessibility

• Alternative text descriptions – add captions and alternative text to images and non-text content
• Easy to navigate – ensure your content is easy to navigate by using descriptive headers and a consistent logical structure
• Easy to read – make your content easy to read, by using appropriate text size, simple fonts,  and good colour contrast between text and background
• Captions – with videos or audio playback, provide transcriptions where possible
• Identify issues – Use the Tota11y bookmarklet to help visualise how your site performs with assistive technologies.

Review the following webpages for more thorough exploration on accessibility:

• W3C – Quick Reference Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2
• W3C – Tips for Writing
• W3C – Tips for Designing
• W3C – Tips for Developing
• W3C – Easy Checks
• W3C – Accessibility Principles
• W3C – Perspective Videos
• W3C – Accessibility, Usability, Inclusion
• A11y Project – A Community-Driven Effort to Make Web Accessibility Easier