Real Life Accessibility: Have you HEARD your site?

About This Talk

In the past it was simpler and easier to think of building websites exclusively for desktop monitors capable of showing 1024x768 pixels, sitting on the desk of a non-impaired, English-speaking person. But today we need to embrace a much broader range of users. And one part of this is designing sites for the visually impaired.

There are automatic checkers that you can use to assess your site’s accessibility. It will tell you that all your images need an alt tag, and that the H2 should come after the H1. This is a good start, but even if you dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s and get 100% pass, your site may be an unnavigable mess in practice.

In this talk we will look at and listen to real world examples of websites that either pass or fail the accessibility test. We will hear anecdotes from actual visually impaired users and discover how they navigate the web. And we will see that even though frameworks like Django can set us up for success, it’s up to us as developers to follow through.