Who benefits from creating accessible websites? Why is accessibility important?
By implementing accessibility best practices, and putting accessibility at the forefront of your design process, you’re not only meeting requirements but making the world wide web a more inclusive space.
Take some time to reflect on these readings and be aware of how you can critically evaluate designs for accessibility.
Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, and writer who teaches design for disability at Olin College of Engineering. In her essay “All Technology is Assistive,” published in Wired magazine, Hendren makes a bold argument for technology—as you can tell by her essay title in the required list of readings below.
“All people, over the course of their lives, traffic between times of relative independence and dependence. So the questions cultures ask, the technologies they invent, and how those technologies broadcast a message about their users — weakness and strength, agency and passivity — are critical ones.”
Sara Hendren
As you make your way through these readings and videos, consider: Who benefits from accessibility? At which stage in the design process should designers consider accessibility? What are practical ways to implement accessibility? How can you evaluate products for accessibility? And lastly, what does accessibility mean to you, and why does it matter?
- All technology is assistive
- Accessibility guidelines for UX designers
- What is universal design
- Inclusive design: the what, the why, and how
- How we do our work matters: Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- And of course, don’t forget to check out the TED talk at the beginning of this page! ⬆️