Starting My Accessibility Journey
Table of contents
About Me
I guess I should start by talking about myself this first time. As of writing, I am still technically a web dev student. I have practicum hours to complete, which incidentally I am doing while working in accessibility.
Yes, it is a theme.
As such, a lot of the stuff I will be writing about is things I have learned while working on projects, and how they might apply to your projects or just in web development in general.
What I Am Doing
My goal is to share ways in which websites and web apps can be made as accessible as possible to the greatest range of people. I want to share tips and tricks, some of which will no doubt be familiar to the veterans out there, and find the hidden and underused things in the technologies we use.
I also want to keep others updated on changes to things such as guidelines. As technologies evolve, better guidelines emerge to help govern what is and isn't considered to be acceptable. Hopefully, I can keep up-to-date on WCAG so I can help others understand it.
Why Am I Doing This?
Accessibility is important. Statistically around one in six people has a form of disability, and truthfully the number is probably higher. That would translate into 1/6 of visitors to your website or application. You need to make sure that they can use it.
On a personal note, I am disabled (autism and ADHD, among other less relevant things) and a huge number of my friends are as well. I want to make sure the web at least is as accessible to them as it can be.
I wanted to write this blog not just for the above, but also to chart my own learning experience. It might even keep me on track and help me remember stuff (poor memory, see ADHD) better. And who knows? Maybe someone will read a post and learn something. If I can teach even a single person, then it will have been worth it.