Be a Better Developer:

Build for Accessibility

India Amos | india@indiamos.com | @indiamos

Grace Hopper Academy 1706 Cohort

Congratulations!

Don’t be this person.

Situational disabilities affect everyone.

http://www.who.int/entity/disabilities/infographic/en/index.html

About 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability.

In the United States

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/disability.htm

Adults with dyslexia: 5–20%, depending on whom you ask

So, this is depressing.

Don’t be this company.

Building for universal access
literally makes products that are
better for everyone.

If you want to be a great developer, get interested in accessibility.

Three key goals:

1. Learn the standards.

2. Build for differing abilities.

3. Build for differing devices.

1. Learn the standards.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued a set of

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php

WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite, defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria

Sample WCAG guidelines

• Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
• All functionality can be operated through the keyboard without requiring specific timing for each keystroke.
• The keyboard focus does not get “trapped” in a component
• Elements on the page receive focus in a meaningful order.
• The context does not change based only on a component receiving focus.

The other big standard: HTML

Using semantic HTML for structure while controlling presentation using CSS, will get you a long way toward accessibility, especially on forms.

Know your elements.

2. Build for differing abilities.

• Image? Describe it.

• Audio? Transcribe it.

• Video? Caption it.

• DOM change? Notify assistive tech using ARIA, and place it downstream.

Personas for Accessible UX, by Whitney Quesenbery:

http://rosenfeldmedia.com/a-web-for-everyone/personas-for-accessible-ux/

3. Build for differing devices.

• Can you do everything?

• Can you get to important elements quickly?

• Can you get out of everything?

Remember:

Building for universal access
literally makes products that are
better for everyone.

If you want to be a great developer, get interested in accessibility.

Resources

http://bit.ly/2uCc9BJ

Thank you!

India Amos | india@indiamos.com | @indiamos