Conversations around web accessibility
Interviews with people involved in one way or another with web accessibility.
Amberley defines web accessibility as “building for the web in ways that ensure it’s usable by everyone. There aren’t barriers to use for anyone. So, I would say it’s about digital equal access, kind of along the same lines as physical equal access. So, just putting people at the center of building for the web.”
Christopher says it’s unfortunate that people become mindful about accessibility only/mostly through lawsuits.
Christopher says that for someone who likes Design so much, he didn’t realize how important good color contrast was, and how bad color contrast issues are.
Jessica suggests that accessibility is a competitive advantage. The more people can use your product, the more likely they are to spend money on it.
Jessica and I ponder whether low-literacy could be considered a disability, and regardless of the answer, that factor needs to be taken into account when designing sites and content.
Stephanie Walter says there’s a lot of things she thought everybody knew about accessibility that actually not a lot of people knew. So, she thinks in general people know that somewhere on the internet some people are blind.
Stephanie Walter tells us that designers should provide a roadmap to their design for the developer, but in many projects, there just isn’t time to do that.
To highlight Global Awareness Accessibility Day, I had a wonderful panel discussion with four people involved in accessibility: Courey Elliott, Dennis Lembrée, Shannon Finnegan, and Dan O’Mahony
Damien tells us “Later does not exist in our industry. Don’t push something without accessibility now. Because you will NOT go back and fix it later”
In which Damien Senger tells us “Universal design is the answer, more than accessibility. Because people are on a spectrum.”
