Digital Accessibility

Building your content with better usability and inclusion

What is Digital Accessibility?

Definition

Digital Accessibility is the practice of creating digital content to be traversed completely, regardless of the abilities of user.

Areas of Disabilities

Disabilities can affect people in many areas of their life.

• Visual
• Auditory
• Speech
• Motor
• Cognitive

Assistive technology is used to aid a user when one or more of these abilities are lost (temporarily or permanently). Becoming familiar with these tools and the techniques for remediation can help you create more accessible content.

Assistive Technologies

There are a vast number of technologies designed to aid people in using electronics, when someone cannot use a conventional keyboard and/or mouse. Knowing that these assistive technologies exist is important, but you do not need to be an expert on them to create accessible content. Essentially, what a content creator needs to know is, if the content can be accessed using only a keyboard, then other assistive technologies will also be able to access the content.

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Why does this affect me?

Inclusion

“Inclusion is about diversity, and ensuring involvement of everyone to the greatest extent possible. In some regions this is also referred to as universal design and design for all.” (WCAG | Accessibility, Usability, and Inclusion)

When we design our content with accessibility in mind it can lead to a better experience overall. The ways in which people will be able to interact with your content will not diminish. Therefore, creating accessible content from the begin should allow your user to use any medium to view your information.

Better accessibility can even increase your products SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by having descriptive alternative text, no pictures of text, and providing transcripts for videos or audio.

Better accessibility = better design

Accessibility…

• Enhances the experience for everyone
• Removes ambiguity
• Makes your product more marketable

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How do I make my content accessible?

Semantics

Use Native elements in HTML. Building your own elements can quickly lead to difficult issues.

Don’t reinvent the wheel!

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How do I know if my content is accessible?

Programs

Despite the vast amount of assistive technologies available in the market, you do not need to test using everything to claim your content as accessible.

A good method to find if your content is accessible is to check if it can be successfully and completely traversed using only a keyboard and screen reader.

Here are some popular screen readers you can use to test your content.

• NVDA (windows) [free]
• JAWS (windows) [costly]
• VoiceOver(mac) [free/preinstalled]

Use the browser inspection tools [ctrl+shift+i] to scan your HTML & CSS for obvious issues.

• Lack of alternative-text for images and interactions
• Lack of labels/titles on iframes, buttons, and other elements
• Inadequate color contrast on non-decorative content
• Etc…

Testing

Perform regular testing on your content. While looking over things consider…

• If I couldn’t use the mouse now, could I still have access to this information?
• Does the alternative text of this picture accurately describe it?
• Does the tabbing of the keyboard focus logically make sense?

Note

This is one of many posts on how to create accessible content. A best use case would be to use this post in tandem with other tutorials and resources!

• Webaim.org
  • "Expanding the potential of the web for people with disabilities by empowering individuals and organizations to create accessible content."
• W3C | Introduction to Web Accessibility
  • "Making the web accessible benefits individuals, businesses, and society. International web standards define what is needed for accessibility."
• Google | Accessibility
  • "Everyone should be able to access and enjoy the web. We’re committed to making that a reality."
• Microsoft | Accessibility Resources
  • "Technology empowers people to achieve more, strengthens their educational opportunities, and makes the workplace more inviting and inclusive. More than a billion people in the world live with disabilities. That's why we believe accessibility is essential to our industry—and the progress of all people."