“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” – Tim Berners-Lee
Access to all information and functionality of the world wide web for everybody has been a requirement from the very beginning – as the quotation above illustrates. Sadly, it’s implemented sparingly. Talking about accessibility should help to move the needle into the right direction. We want to tear down barriers that complicate or prevent access and usage to digital services, websites, and applications.
Digital accessibility is a current hobby of mine. I enroll into courses and tutorials, share my insights and hold talks and presentations about it. But no power point slide or workshop was able to present the problem in its wholeness – yet.
WCAG and EU-Guidelines
Most companies won’t step into digital accessibility out of sheer goodwill or charity. That’s why guidelines enforce it with a deadline in 2025. The WCAG standard must be met to reach a proper level of accessibility. These guidelines are a starting point for everyone to make their application accessible.
My very own approach
The WCAG guidelines (web content accessibility guidelines) are extensive, technically detailed, and somewhat overwhelming. The criteria are sorted after the topics perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Over time I found another structure to work my way into accessibility step by step, getting more complex further along.
Topics
In contrast to the WCAG my topics align to different barriers or fields of problems. The guidelines can be sorted into them.
- Color and Contrast
- Layout
- Labeling
- Keyboard
- Forms
- Screen Reader
- Video and Audio
- Dynamic Content (others)
Chapters
At the same time I create a workshop, a series of blog posts and another project, all on digital accessibility. I will structure each topic the same way.
- Which disability / barrier is affected?
- How can the disabled state be emulated or recreated?
- Which testing (tools) are there?
- How can it be fixed?
- Which points from the WCAG checklist can be checked for this?
This is only the beginning…
As I mentioned above, I’m planning on posting new parts of an accessibility workshop regularly. I will try weekly, but by-weekly will be more realistic.
Please use the comments and contact me when there is need or chance to correct or expand my posts. I am no expert (yet) but I long to be and that is only possible by learning.