So this week is all about web accessibility.
After reading WCAG 2.1 AA Checklist and running this site through the WAVE AIM accessibility checker I’ve come some interesting conclusions:
- the checklist made me realise if the appearance of elements other than images conveys meaning i should label it for screen readers
- the WAVE checker made me realise the mobile / small screen optimisation of this site is HORRIBLE… like oh no
- a technical feature that can help accessibility is a tool in website editors that lets them easily embed video players and audio players (full players, not auto-play) and add subtitles and alt text.
- broader, I wonder just how the strictness of the checklist could affect the creativity and diversity of sites on the web. I come from the indie-web and many of the sites have terrible accessibility for sure but the experiences are very unique. I would not want a web that is all unified to a same layout. I think for big companies, government and educational applications and sites the accessibility checklist should absolutely be followed. For a carrd or heyspace by an individual it is up to them what they do.
- another thing is the wordpress editor is not very accessible (to both those with and without assistive software). Why should professional web creation tools be inaccessible?
- the checklist also didn’t mention an important part of UX which is the mental map of the site within the user’s mind. The best way I can put it is, can the user clearly envision a “house” of “rooms” that are the szites that they can visit? Many pages may be accessibility compliant but the overall site navigation could be horrible and from experience that makes it visiting the site very frustrating.
- something I didn’t consider until just now from experience is common browser keyboard shortcuts be kept to keep sites navigable. For example, on mac do not disable cmd + opt + left arrow and cmd + opt + right arrow because those are used to navigate between tabs. Another would be
After watching the Web Accessibility Perspectives Videos I realise these are the basics of web accessibility I already knew. I think the customisable text option is interesting because many times adding that to current websites with more elements would break the site’s formatting so web devs should make an effort to make things readable from the start.
I think the checklist is overly rigid and technical. The Manual Accessibility Testing from Harvard is a much better way to actually test a site.
This site is currently not fully accessible but that’s because I have a plan for the layout that I haven’t learned how to do yet. I want to add alternative text for my navigation buttons, change up the margins and edit the css.