![Cover image for [On-Demand Talk] Demystifying Web Accessibility Contributor](https://community.codenewbie.org/images/xJY1oqiVl7KlgTzl5id4PB9ZavFTwlfyV53lqB5lIiM/rs:fill:1000:420/g:sm/mb:500000/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb21t/dW5pdHkuY29kZW5l/d2JpZS5vcmcvcmVt/b3RlaW1hZ2VzL3Vw/bG9hZHMvYXJ0aWNs/ZXMvY2thcnB1MHBu/Nzhja2d1dGo3Z3ou/cG5n)
About this talk
Right after I started my first job, the client I was working for had to implement web accessibility as a legal requirement, which was a pretty big deal as it concerned a large legacy codebase, many different stakeholders and most people on the team didn’t have much experience with the topic.
Since everything was new to me, I didn’t mind much about what I would learn first - but I was very excited about learning something that benefited a diverse community of people.
I was lucky enough to have a bunch of amazing mentors and I would like to share some of the things I learned along the way with you - hope they help you on your journey.
Takeaways
- The basics of Web Accessibility
- Why it’s important and who benefits from it
- Basic terminology regarding Web Accessibility
- Where and how to get started with implementation
More specifically, we will look at three things you can do today to make your application a little more accessible, including:
- Semantic HTML
- Color Contrast
- Keyboard Accessibility
If there is only one thing you take away from my talk, however, it would be that in the case of web accessibility, 10% is better than nothing. It’s an ongoing journey of improvement - but it’s important to start somewhere :)
Slides
>> Click here to download slides
🌈 Comment below and ask me questions — I might just answer them during my live speaker discussion!
About Josefine Schaefer
Josefine is a frontend engineer based in Hamburg, Germany. She describes herself as "ready to take over the world by storm" on good days and "wondering when she will be exposed as the imposter she is" on bad ones.
This on-demand talk is part of CodeLand 2021 — a virtual conference brought to you by CodeNewbie & DEV on September 23 & 24, 2021.
Latest comments (45)
As someone who is also very passionate about equity on the web and accessibility, I loved that you gave a talk about this at Codeland 2021. I should get going on accessibility talks myself!
Yay! Thank you Josefine. As someone who is new to code, this talk was very useful. Semantic HTML is a habit I will implement immediately in my learning. You explained the importance of accessibility very well. It's a good skill to have in your toolbox because you never know where your career may take you. It's best to be prepared than have this sneak up on you like a spot test. Websites for the most part exist in the public domain and we need to ensure the public can access and benefit from them!
Absolutely! It's great that you are trying to make this a habit early on in your learning journey, than it will later come naturally to you :)
Hi! Reminder that if you have any questions for @josefineschaefer to drop them here! We'll address these questions in the live speaker discussion. 📣
Thanks for this nice and inspiring talk about web #accesibility at the #codeland2021 Conference! i dealt with the topic some time ago, now it has moved back into my focus :)
That was such an excellent overview -- thank you
A few things I learned: you can improve accessibility without having to learn anything new:
Use lower brightness colors
Use higher contrast between text and background -- minimum ratio of 4.5:1
"Web Accessibility Simulator"
Thanks so much for your talk! Any recommendations for tools that I can use and recommend to students. I use WAVE Chrome extension, WebAIM, and ColorHexa but any other tools on how to check for keyboard accessibility would be great. Thanks!
Thanks for your question! Wave & WebAIM are already great places to start. For keyboard accessibility, it might be a good idea to visualise the tab order (like with taba11y) or with the Accessibility Tab in the Firefox Devtools.
You can find a list of further evaluation tools here: w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ :)
Font choices are missing. People think "tall and thin light grey on dark grey is sooooo cool". Well, it's not.
Read lexend.com/ for the science on why fonts matter!
Thanks for this great talk and sharing actionable steps we can take to improve our sites (plus resources to use). It was a lightbulb moment for me to hear about how coding for accessibility can also help a broader range of the population beyond those we might normally think about when working to make our sites more accessible.
Thank you Josefine! I appreciate all the resources and information for improving web accessibility.
Amazing talk accessibility is really important as we start the journey.
One resource that helps me is Wave extention.