Selfish Accessibility at CodeDaze

The slides from my talk at CodeDaze follow. If you cannot view the embed, visit them directly at SlideShare.

Embedded Videos

There were two videos in my talk. They will not play in the SlideShare embed, so I stuffed them below.

Slide 56

Slide 66

Tweets

Some tweets from the event. I will likely add more as I have time to wade into the stream.

Thanks to @aardrian’s sponsorship we will be bringing captioned talks to CodeDaze!! twitter.com/aardrian/status/104…

Shout out to Charlie Wertz at @CodeDazeConf. Dedicated to him, in fact.

Now I learned there’s something called a numeronym which is what you call turning “accessibility” to “a11y” or “observability” to “o11y” @aardrian #CodeDaze2018

I cant believe I didn't know this, my mind is blown I'd always wondered why we called it i18n

Accessibility gets no respect: Sherwin Williams has a color called “Accessible Beige”. @aardrian #codedaze2018 pic.twitter.com/vqsp6FIVZB

A large chunk of the US has some sort of disability or impairment, physical and cognitive. Rarely are they on their own, they’re often comorbid. If you can’t see, you also might have trouble moving around. @aardrian #codedaze2018

“Now that we’ve talked about other people, it’s time to be selfish.” The most motivating way to inspire change is to make it about me. @aardrian #codedaze2018

“Getting older is not for the young” @aardrian #codedaze2018

[the woman with the book] is clearly more technologically advanced. Solar powered, no worry about battery, can tell immediately how far through the book she is. It’s skeuomorphism writ large! @aardrian #codedaze2018

OK but more seriously. Disabilities come from a few places. Birth, getting old, accidents. Even if you think you’re invincible – eating at desk, content not in native language, no headphones handy. @aardrian #codedaze2018

Example: non-native interface or typing on your Dutch-colleagues laptop. It’s weird using muscle memory and having different things come out of the keyboard. @aardrian #codedaze2018

The Dutch-colleague was mine, @aardrian was stuck trying to print a boarding pass and avoid publicly panicking and getting physically removed from using the public computer.

Selfish user stories: “as a user on a sun-lit patio, I want to be able to read the content and see the controls”. “As a user in bed with a sleeping spouse I want to be able to watch a training video in silence” @aardrian #codedaze2018

Or like for me: “in order to click links as a user with no elbow room in coach class…” @aardrian #codedaze2018

The gist: There’s a lot of ways we can make accessibility about us or our stakeholders by thinking of situational disabilities.

Some good guidelines: Have text alternatives for images. There’s lots of reasons why images might not work beyond vision. @aardrian #codedaze2018

Hyperlinks! Underline them, color isn’t sufficient. There are contrast guidelines. Make sure they’re not repetitive and annoying. It improves UX as well as accessibility. Also check contrast in general no matter what the art director says. @aardrian #codedaze2018

Label your form fields (a real label, not placeholder). Errors should be associated with fields. Screen readers have a real trouble otherwise and it immediately eliminates people from participating in your site. @aardrian #codedaze2018

Make sure your site is keyboard accessible. Make sure the focus is visible on your site, too. @aardrian #codedaze2018

Helpful if you can’t use a mouse, or yours broke or [like me], you just don’t feel like moving to use the mouse! (see? Make it about you!)

Accessibility is not a checklist. The stiaramp is a terrible design for wheelchairs and walkers.

It’s an ongoing process that must be continuously dealt with. Doing it once doesn’t make it done. @aardrian #codedaze2018

"Accessibility isn't a checklist. It's about making sure stuff works." –@aardrian #codedaze2018

Interesting bit from @colindean’s talk about code reviews: accessibility experts were the most vocal in the room. #CodeDaze2018 @CodeDazeConf