IT Accessibility: What Web Developers Have to Say

The web is about information accessibility

It's really a basic human freedom that we

are just really beginning to talk about in

the last decade. <ahm> It's important

therefore that everybody have this freedom

any freedom that's only allocated to a few

is not really a freedom.

The web is about information and <er> it's

important that people can access the

information that they need in order to

complete a workflow or get their job done

finish a task.

I think the web should be accessible to

everyone all the time. I grew up with it

being easily accessible to me.<Erm> It's how

I learnt information easily. <Erm>I can't

imagine someone not being able to just

google something instantly, and getting

what they need.

I think websites should be accessible<ah>

because...the web is founded kinda on this

idea of sharing information and if you

can't share information or if some people

can't see it , then it's not truly being shared.

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We all have different abilities and

disabilities, and if we're all going to be

able to get the same content and interpret

it in a somewhat similar fashion, it has

to be given to us in that way and

accessible so that we can actually reach

it

Accessibility is important for a number of

reasons. <ah> For one, there are laws that

apply.<ah>Another is, it can relate to our

reputation. And a third is that<ah>by paying

attention to it, we create a more

inclusive educational environment.

I think we are really good as developers

at being...focusing on the 80% case.

Focusing on how do we make every 4 out of

every 5 of our users happy. How do we

build things for those group of people,

because the last 20% is always hard. But I

say that the web is for 100%. It's for

everybody, which is what Tim Burners-Lee

said.

I'm definitely am very moved by this

notion of inclusiveness. I mean I think

that, for me it's a part of who I...

this is important to me. But <erm> there's

also just the sort of, <erm> the notion of

of having everybody's contributions to the

sort of...the knowledge.

Big challenge is, to escape your own

viewpoint. And to not make the assumption

that everyone sees the web the way you see

it, on the device you see, <erm> the way

you use it. And so when you're creating

web pages, that's the biggest challenge,

is getting outside of where you're sitting.

The biggest obstacle to accessibility,

I think is...is pure knowledge.

It's really about putting yourself in the

mind of a person with disabilities.

A person who has, who has no motor skills

has no hands, has a lack of vision, has a

lack of hearing.<Ahm> May have a

cognitive disability. To be able to put

yourselves in their shoes and understand

how are they working with the thing that

I'm building or designing right now,

can they use it?

The alternative is, you build something

someone says "oh no it's not accessible!"

and so you go back and try to fix it but

you probably have been doing the wrong

thing at many places <ah> you know you may

have hundreds of images with no alt text,

you may have navigation that's very confused

or you are relying on libraries that...

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it's just that the technologies aren't

going to figure out. <Erm> And so that's

when someone says, it's too much, too

expensive, too much work. Well just do it

from the beginning and it'll...it'll probably

get a quality product with less work.

Accessibility is important to incorporate

earlier on because if you don't

incorporate it early on, you will

incorporate it later at greater expense,

with a certain amount of time you don't

have, with a certain amount of money you

don't have, to try to make it better.

Accessibility, unfortunately like

everything else in design and web design

has to be done from the very beginning.

So whether you're designing for different

devices, whether doing for different kinds

of human abilities, all those things have

to be thought of from the very beginning

and built into your concept of what your

your plan is. Of course nobody wants to

take time at the end. We're almost there,

we just want to get it out, and that's the

mistake many of us make. It's like

"I'll just get it out, then I'll go back and fix it."

No. Doesn't ever happen. There's always

a next project.

The first step in getting an accessible

site, is to work with the management, so

they understand the value of making it

accessible, and also helping them

understand that <erm> we can do pretty

much anything they want and be accesible.

If you just talk about accessibility, it

may not be immediately appreciated as

something important to do. But if you

start talking about quality and <ah> the

overlap of search engine optimisation and

accessibility and things of that nature

that...that will tend to get people's

attention more.

When I started, I was a designer and I

wanted to make things pretty. And you

don't think about anything besides the

aesthetics. And what I soon realised was

that when you have something that works

it already looks good, right, so that's

where I started to move towards things

being functional then the beauty came

along after that.

I don't believe that making a site

accessible inhibits creativity. In fact

I would argue it ..it helps creativity, it

improves creativity.

Good accessible design often closely

relates to good usable design. And we

found a really close parallel between good

mobile design, mobile for mobile devices

and the simplicity and clarity of good

accessible design.

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<Rick Ells>