Know About Accessibility

  • Colorful mosaic of a tree with swirling branches, surrounded by birds, butterflies, and flowers against a vibrant blue and yellow background.

    All of us should know about accessibility.

    Welcome to Know About Accessibility. We’re happy you’re here! We are Sarah Horton and David Sloan, co-authors of the book, What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility. We created this website to support and extend the themes and topics from the book. All of us have a role to… continue reading

  • Illustration of Maria, a woman with dark skin and shoulder-length dark hair, at a table gesturing to Spanish-language information displayed on a tablet device. Several other people are at the table, each with a handout in front of them.

    Maria: Bilingual community health worker

    An accessibility persona from A Web for Everyone — Maria comes from a traditional Mexican extended family. She grew up helping her parents and older relatives navigate the English-speaking world. Her work as a community health worker is a natural extension. She does outreach and health education in the Spanish-speaking… continue reading

  • Not all user needs or barriers will be addressed by the “current” WCAG guidelines at any given time.

    By Erich Manser — One thing I consider essential for engineers who are concerned with digital accessibility to understand is that the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) Standards, while foundational and extremely important, are also quite limited in scope and coverage. Even as WCAG continues to evolve and expand, there… continue reading

  • Operation and Input

    By Sarah Horton and David Sloan — Assistive technologies that support user accessibility needs relating to operating a user interface include both hardware and software solutions. Alternative input devices are hardware devices with supporting software that together perform a similar role to a standard mouse and keyboard but do not… continue reading

  • People with disabilities have a wide and diverse range of user needs.

    By Jonathan Avila — It is essential for people who design, create, and validate technology to understand the needs of people with disabilities, get feedback from users with disabilities, and understand the technology and settings people with disabilities use to access various types of experiences. You should engage diverse users,… continue reading

  • People with disabilities use a variety of assistive technologies and accessibility strategies.

    By Jonathan Avila — Engineers should know how assistive technologies operate and how users with disabilities interact with them. People with disabilities may use various techniques, accessibility features, and assistive technologies throughout the day and may switch to different ways of using technology in different contexts. Familiarize yourself with the… continue reading

  • Physical/Motor Disabilities

    By Sarah Horton and David Sloan — Some people have disabilities that affect the ability to move and control movement, in particular the use of the hands to operate a computer, smartphone, tablet, kiosk, or other hardware device. Within this category of disability, there are a range of diverse conditions… continue reading

  • Principles of Universal Design

    By Sarah Horton and David Sloan — Some accessibility principles emerged from efforts to create accessible and inclusive physical environments and products. The Principles of Universal Design were developed in 1997 by a multidisciplinary team at North Carolina State University and remain a useful resource for digital product engineers. Universal… continue reading

  • Product managers have a pivotal role in accessibility implementation.

    By Jonee Meiser — Anyone and everyone who is an accessibility professional or expert will say everyone on a software development team has a role to play in embedding accessibility successfully. Admittedly, I struggled with what that looked like for me in terms of supporting every role in the development… continue reading

  • Programmatic Access to Accessibility Information

    By Sarah Horton and David Sloan — Visual user interface characteristics enable perception and understanding of content and the operation of functionality. A control may look like a button because of its shape and border and the presence of a text label or icon within the control. But this visual… continue reading

  • Shared Responsibility for Accessibility

    By Sarah Horton and David Sloan — There’s been a trend over the years to see accessibility as overwhelmingly the responsibility of development. As the people writing the code that will run the digital resource, it’s true that developers have a significant responsibility to ensure the code they write meets… continue reading