Why learn accessibility design as a developer?
Simply put, it’s the right thing to do. Leaving people out of the conversation or not giving people the entire picture of a story is not only exclusionary, but in certain situations it can be very dangerous. As a developer, it is part of your job to create products with integrity and that reach as wide of an audience as possible. If you still need another reason, Google’s Performance Tests check for accessibility. If you build accessible websites, your client’s SEO scores will improve along with their Usability.
What do I need to learn to build accessible websites?
You need to learn about different disabilities and how users interact with websites in general. If you’re building a User Interface, you really need to take into consideration the different kind of challenges people face. It helps to understand the different technologies used to access the web.
This is just the beginning, and I’m already feeling overwhelmed. Luckily, a lot of work has already been done for you. You can make your web pages instantly improved and more accessible just by learning what’s in this one post post. Believe it or not, a lot of advanced developers out there skip learning this information.
How do I begin building websites with accessibility?
Whether you’re a beginner or experienced dev, you’re in the right place. This post is chock full of high quality resources that you can take a deeper dive into, once you get the basics down.
All Web Developers should know these basics:
How WordPress is becoming more Accessible
WordPress offers a great deal of Accessibility resources and also maintains standards for WordPress Themes claiming to be accessible. Accessibility Theme Developers are required to meet a set of standards to be able to claim that their theme is accessible.
The WordPress Accessibility Best Practices Handbook, is a free resource that will help developers build with accessibility in mind.
Many WordPress Developers who are passionate about this subject have come together to form the Make WordPress Accessible Team.
This team gets together and works out bugs and issues related to accessibility in WordPress Core, as well as reviewing Themes that claim to meet accessibility standards.
Get the basic HTML template here:
<body>
<header role="banner">
<nav role="navigation"></nav>
<div role="search">
<form>
<h3>This is a search form</h3>
<label for="search form">Search</label>
<input type="text" />
<button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>
</div>
</header>
<main role="main"></main>
<aside role="complementary"></aside>
<footer role="contentinfo"></footer>
</body>