Accessibility: Adding "Why" to the "How"

The overall goal of this talk is to help you understand the context behind accessibility, how we approach thinking about accessibility concerns, why accessibility matters outside of compliance reasons, and how everyone, not just individuals with disabilities, benefits from accessible design.

Takeaways:

• Broadening the definition of accessibility
• Learning to view accessibility and usability from more than just a compliance perspective
• Understanding the benefits that accessible and universal design provide for everyone

Details:

We're not here to just talk compliance. Accessibility efforts generally benefit everyone, not just individuals with disabilities. Seeing individuals with disabilities as "a problem to solve for" often results in quick fixes, temporary solutions and, generally, inconsiderate design. Individuals with disabilities are people who use applications, just with a different set of parameters.

If you're only focused on bare minimum compliance to standards, such as WCAG, you're missing out some big things:

• Better understanding who you serve
• Benefitting everyone you serve, regardless of background
• Learning more about assistive technologies and other means of interacting with technology
• Discovering new tools for testing and ensuring accessibility
• Gaining a better appreciation for how some of our everyday tools and designs came from accessibility

Join and help us build a better, more inclusive industry!

NOTE

This talk will be mainly focused on digital accessibility. There may be some aspects of physical accessibility discussed, mainly as examples.

• Development
• Design