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Vendor interface and systems management

Submitted by adrayer on

This is for people who either write, edit, or maintain code, or provide code feedback.

Introduction

“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

From the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI):

The Web is fundamentally designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, location, or ability. When the Web meets this goal, it is accessible to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability.

Thus the impact of disability is radically changed on the Web because the Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world. However, when websites, applications, technologies, or tools are badly designed, they can create barriers that exclude people from using the Web.

And from MDN Web Docs:

Accessibility is the practice of making your websites usable by as many people as possible. We traditionally think of this as being about people with disabilities, but the practice of making sites accessible also benefits other groups such as those using mobile devices, or those with slow network connections.

You might also think of accessibility as treating everyone the same, and giving them equal opportunities, no matter what their ability or circumstances. Just as it is wrong to exclude someone from a physical building because they are in a wheelchair (modern public buildings generally have wheelchair ramps or elevators), it is also not right to exclude someone from a website because they have a visual impairment. We are all different, but we are all human, and therefore have the same human rights.

Accessibility is the right thing to do. Providing accessible sites is part of the law in some countries, which can open up some significant markets that otherwise would not be able to use your services or buy your products.

Building accessible sites benefit everyone:

  • Semantic HTML, which improves accessibility, also improves SEO, making your site more findable.
  • Caring about accessibility demonstrates good ethics and morals, which improves your public image.
  • Other good practices that improve accessibility also make your site more usable by other groups, such as mobile phone users or those on low network speed. In fact, everyone can benefit from many such improvements.
  • Did we mention it is also the law in some places?

Core skills

Go through the different sources to learn about each topic.

Other general sources

Check out some of these great additional resources:

Return to digital accessibility skills landing page