A quick overview of major accessibility concerns, how they affect our websites, and how we can make access to our websites better.

Go fullscreen: ⌃⌥F

Accessibility

Make the web work for everyone

The Web is accessible by default—if your website isn’t accessible it’s your fault.

Visual impairments

Blindness, partial or full; colour blindness; cataracts; glaucoma; age; etc.

  • Allow text to be resized
  • Have good contrast in colours
  • Test for colour blindness related issues
  • Make sure the website works well with screen readers
  • Use proper alt attributes

Mobility and dexterity impairments

Missing a hand, limited movement, difficulty with fine control, trouble holding a mouse, termors or shakes, etc.

  • Recognize and prepare for the fact that not everybody will use a mouse
  • Make the website keyboard accessible
  • Increase hit areas of links and buttons

Auditory impairments

Deafness, partial deafness, etc.

  • Provide text captions and subtitles

Cognitive impairments

Dyslexia, memory issues, problem solving issues, attention deficits, hyperactivity, reading abilities, etc.

  • Make it clear where in the website the user is
  • Organize your content correctly & use proper headings
  • Make the text easily scannable
  • Clearly mark links
  • Use lots of images and graphics

WAI-ARIA

Describes enhancements to websites to make them more accessible

Extra attributes to help accessibility tools understand your content better

HTML
<!-- Define important landmarks -->
<header role="banner">
<!-- banner, navigation, search, main, contentinfo -->

<!-- Define more accessible information -->
<a href="…" aria-label="More complex information">

<!-- Define an HTML element that contains the alternative description -->
<img src="…" alt="…" aria-details="thing">
Start

A quick overview of major accessibility concerns, how they affect our websites, and how we can make access to our websites better.