Accessibility

Accessibility is intrinsic to everything I work on, whether a design or the HTML, CSS and JavaScript a web page is built with.

When designing an interface, it’s vital that the visuals cater for the broadest possible audience, ensuring:

  • colour contrast thresholds are met
  • focus states for links, forms and buttons are obvious
  • the typefaces used won’t prove problematic for visitor with dyslexia
  • text size isn’t too small for some users to read

There are hundreds of considerations that go into designing an accessible interface, and the code is no different:

  • semantic HTML must be used
  • ARIA enhancements should be used where needed
  • CSS and JavaScript should not interfere with users’ experience of the page

This means assistive technology like screen reader and speech recognition software can interpret page contents correctly, giving their users as good an experience anyone else.

Not only should we code in a way that doesn’t harm the experience for users of assistive technology, but users that have activated settings like Dark Mode or reduced motion in their operating system’s preferences should be respected.

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