I reckon a lot of websites have bad accessibility not because folks don’t care, but because they don’t know there’s an issue in the first place.
The headline is begging the question (I don’t think accessible websites are so hard to build), but I agree with Robin’s idea:
What if our text editors caught accessibility issues and showed them to us during development?
This is something that Hidde has been talking about recently too, looking at content management systems.
I like the idea of adding this to personal websites:
Mastodon shows an “Alt” button in the bottom right of images that have associated alt text. This button, when clicked, shows the alt text the author has written for the image.
So my observation is that 80% of the subject of accessibility consists of fairly simple basics that can probably be learnt in 20% of the time available. The remaining 20% are the difficult situations, edge cases, assistive technology support gaps and corners of specialised knowledge, but these are extrapolated to 100% of the subject, giving it a bad, anxiety-inducing and difficult reputation overall.
Manu’s book is available to pre-order now. I’ve had a sneak peek and I highly recommend it!
You’ll learn how to build common patterns written accessibly in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You’ll also start to understand how good and bad practices affect people, especially those with disabilities.
Another handy accessibility testing tool that can be used as a bookmarklet.
This is good advice:
Write alternative text as if you’re describing the image to a friend.
Turning accessibility awareness into action with HTML.
Here’s how I interpret the top-level guidance in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
When it comes to sustainable web design, the hard work is invisible.
Business, sustainability, and inclusivity.
Separate your concerns.