This article has all the information you need to get started with website accessibility and apply it as a professional developer.
What is web accessibility?
Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them.
– Introduction to web accessibility by w3.org
For example, consider that some people may have some kind of vision disability. They may have to use your website with a keyboard and a screen reader (which reads out text on your website to the user). If your website isn’t coded in a way that allows this, they may not be able to use your website at all.
Another kind of disability is a motor disability. Some people may have difficulty using their hands and fingers. This could be a problem when they use touch devices. If your website doesn’t have clickable elements that are large and spaced-out, they may not be able to use your website.
So, in summary, accessibility means making your website usable by everyone, by accounting for and accommodating for different kinds of disabilities.
Who affects accessibility?
Whether or not a website is accessible depends on the front end code. This means that everyone whose work eventually ends up on the front end, affects accessibility. That includes:
- Front end (or full stack) developers
- Designers
- Content creators (who write text and create images)
However, developers affect accessibility the most.
Developers add a lot more code on the front end than anyone else. This means that their work affects accessibility much more than anyone else’s work.
Also, developers have the final say on how other people’s work is added to the front end. For example, the content creator may provide some text, but developers have to turn it into code. Alternatively, if content creators can add content directly to a page, developers are the ones that set up the systems to do that.
So in the end, accessibility is affected most by developers. For that reason, developers (front end or full stack) should know about accessibility.
It may also be beneficial for more people to know about it, such as designers and content creators, but to a lesser extent. They can either learn it themselves, or have developers educate them on the parts that they need to know about.
Important guides on accessibility
For more detailed guides on accessibility, please see: