Last week was Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) so let’s do a little awareness, shall we?
In my experience, most people shy away from the issue of accessibility because they expect it to be more trouble than it’s worth. In reality, many of the biggest accessibility issues are proverbial “low-hanging fruit”, with fixes that are often easy, and universally improve user experiences across demographics and devices.
According to the WebAIM Million Report [1], the top three Accessibility issues for homepages are 1. low-contrast text, 2. missing ‘alt’ text, and, 3. empty links. Folks, YOU GOT THIS.
As Ed Summers (Head of Accessibility at Github) said at the Raleigh GAAD event last week, “Progress trumps perfection.” Take some time to work on these issues for your site – every improvement is a step in the right direction.
If you need help getting started, please consider joining me for Office Hours this Thursday at Blush CoWork, or reach out for a consultation!
Tips & Tools
Not sure where you fall on the spectrum of contrast? Find out with the Colour Contrast Checker.
This website and Chrome extension make it super easy to pull your colors and compare for compliance across WCAG Standards.
Stat of the Week
1 Billion
The number of people – worldwide – who have disabilities, such as visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments.
Learn more on the GAAD Foundation website, https://accessibility.day/, which also profiles all the groups hosting local celebrations each year.
My Recent Highlights from the Wire
[1] – WebAIM Million, 2023 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages: https://webaim.org/projects/million/