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Why is accessibility so hard to sell?
We’ve been in the web business since 2007. We’ve seen lots of changes and trends over the years – from pixel perfect websites to responsive design, Flash to React and everything in between.
What seems to be consistent over the years is a lack of regard for accessibility – making sites usable for everyone.
From a business perspective, this lack of interest in having an accessible website remains confusing to us. Why on earth would you cut 15% of your potential customers off the get-go by not having an accessible site? It seems to me, that’s one of the easiest ways to grow your customer base.
And, yet, here we are in 2019 still trying to convince people it’s not only the right thing to do but it makes good business sense too.
Trends rule, sizzle sells. And if that’s the case, how do we turn accessible websites in to the next big thing?
Moving forward vs Standing Still
Change is hard. Not sure I’ve ever met someone who wouldn’t agree with that. But does that mean we shouldn’t change our ways or try something new?
People who know me well know that I get bored if I’m not trying something new. It could be learning a new way to write code to solve a problem or finding a new recipe that makes weekday dinners a breeze. But that new learning also means I have to let go of old ways. For me, that’s part of the fun.
I would much rather keep moving forward in life – even if that comes with frustration – than stand still and be content in the old ways.
Can we please start with HTML?
I’ve never been one to jump on to a library or framework bandwagon. I skipped right past Bootstrap and don’t venture into the worlds of React, Vue or Angular. Granted, jquery has been in my toolbox for a while but I’m moving to vanilla JavaScript where I can.
I’ve avoided those tools because I find them to be too much – too much code, too much bloat, too much technical debt – for the type of projects I work on.
What concerns me most about these kinds of tools is the way they distract developers from the basics. Learning HTML and CSS from the ground up seems to have gone by the way-side. And that lack of understanding is what causes so many issues when it comes to web accessibility.
I often say that the best way to build an accessible web site is to start with semantic HTML. Screen reader technology understands it right out of the box. And it comes with built-in functionality that we don’t have to recreate with fancy scripts that add weight to a page.
HTML is the foundation for all websites. It’s what browsers use to deliver a website to us. Without HTML, there wouldn’t be much of a web to browse. So can we all try to learn a little HTML today?
The Web at 30
Happy Birthday World Wide Web!
For someone who has spent the better part of the past 20 years working in web development, this is definitely a day to celebrate. Without the web, I can’t even imagine what my career path would have been.
So how will I celebrate? Well, the usual routine for sure – updating client sites, fine-tuning a theme for a new build, reading posts by other web developers to broaden my skills.
I’ll also be working on curriculum development for the online Web Accessibility course I’m teaching as part of the Accessible Media Production Graduate Certificate at Mohawk. That seems to be the most fitting way to celebrate. A way to pass on my learning to a group of folks keen to make the web more inclusive.
How are you going to celebrate 30 years of the web?
Being an advocate
Not long after I started building websites for clients, I somehow took on the role of advocating for the visitor.
It all happened quite innocently. It wasn’t a role I planned to take on. It’s not a formal role in our company. You won’t see Visitor Advocate on my business cards.
Advocating for the visitor seems to be something that comes naturally to me. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time visiting websites every day. I visit websites that do things well. More often than not, I visit websites that do things horribly.
When I land on one of those not-so-great websites, I shake my head and wonder if anyone involved in the building of that site thought to take 2 minutes to imagine being a visitor. I suspect if they had, things would have turned out differently.
As I spent more time understanding web accessibility, my advocacy kicked in to higher gear. Unfortunately, that means my head shakes more often too.
This role doesn’t always make me a popular member of the team for sure. I’m usually seen as the one who wants to squash all the cool new toys and kibosh the bells and whistles. But that’s actually not the case.
I love to be wowed by new and fancy just like the next person. However – and this is the big however – I don’t want that bling to distract me or prevent me from doing what I came to a website to do in the first place: find some information, book an appointment or buy a new gizmo.
Every person in the process of building a website – client, designer, writer, developer – needs to be a Visitor Advocate. That’s really we’re building a website in the first place – to solve a problem for a visitor on the other side of the screen.
The learning process
I’ve been building websites for almost 15 years now. I started with table-based layouts and sliced Photoshop files. Now, it’s all about responsive design, web standards and accessibility.
Though I had a mentor in my early days (thanks Stacey!), I’m pretty much a self taught web developer. In the early years, Google and forums were my teachers along with the odd text book.
Today, search engines still lead me to great resources when I’m trying to understand something new or solve a problem. Even more so though are the amazing folks on Twitter that share their knowledge happily and freely.
Books have always been a part of my learning process but I choose them carefully. The web changes so rapidly that printed resources can be out of date in a heartbeat. If I know a book focusses on fundamentals, I’m all in.
The one constant in this field is that it’s always changing. For me, it’s impossible to get bored. Not a day goes by that I don’t have to solve a new problem or stumble across something new. It’s why I love what I do.
Just Write
Day 1 …
Starting or breaking a habit. Is it as simple as just starting? Is it the intent that makes all the difference? Do we choose to start a habit because of something we think we want?
Regular writing is one of those habits that seems sensible. We all seem to have observations about the world around us. If we don’t put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) do those observations really make a difference? Do they change things? Are they just a form of complaining?
Perhaps writing down our observations is about leaving a trace, a record of our time on this planet, a way to let the world know – in a more permanent fashion – what we notice as we go about our life.
And it seems I’ve just recorded my first observation for posterity. 🙂