Heydon Pickering

We make inaccessible and unusable websites and apps all the time, but it's not for lack of skill or talent. It's just a case of doing things the wrong way. We try to build the best experiences we can, but we only make them for ourselves and for people like us. This book looks at common interface patterns from the perspective of an inclusive designer-someone trained in building experiences that cater to the huge diversity of abilities, preferences and circumstances out there. There's no such thing as an 'average' user, but there is such a thing as an average developer. This book will take you from average to expert in the area that matters the most: making things more readable and more usable to more people.

Coding Accessibility Into Web Design

Inclusive Design Patterns

Inclusive Components — Accessible web interfaces, piece by piece

Every Layout

Smashing Magazine

Accessibility is not just about addressing specific disabilities, but making sure as many people as possible have access to the same information. There's rarely a good reason to lock people out when openness is a foundational principle of the web. Web accessibility is quite a large topic -- far too large to fit into a small book. So, what will this book cover? Though we shall encounter visual design challenges, deal with performance issues, and adopt progressive enhancement -- all of which are accessibility concerns -- the underlying theme of this book is about making the interactivity of web applications include keyboard and screen reader users. Starting with defining simple button controls and moving on to create reusable, accessible widgets, this book is about making interactions possible and meaningful for those who suffer from cognitive and motor impairments, as well as users who experience a range of vision impairments. However, the lessons learned from addressing the specific requirements of those using assistive technologies or consuming information in unusual ways can be applied to enrich the web for everyone. We all win.

Heydon Pickering

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