Top accessibility resources
Resources I wish I had when I started my UX journey. And an answer to why Comic Sans isn’t such a bad typeface.
This list is to help you learn about accessibility. Here are 40 links that focus on accessibility in technology — web, and applications.
Books
Two books for a good start before digging deeper into the topic:
Can accessibility and business goals go hand in hand? How to convince leaders to invest in inclusive and accessible products. What will be the return on investment? How can you prove that it works? Plus some examples of innovations that grew out of mismatched designs.
Accessibility Handbook by Katie Cunningham
The Accessibility Handbook gives an overview of the main requirements of a good design for Low vision, Audio Accessibility, Physical Accessibility, or Cognitive Disabilities. It gives a brief description of the annoyances that people with certain disabilities often have trouble with and a list of the best practices. For example:
- Types of colour blindness and % of the population affected by it. Such an important argument for prioritization and design decisions
- How to write a copy to accommodate everyone
- What is the “The River Effect”
- Why Comic Sans is not so bad. Why? Stick with me
Industry-standard guidelines
WCAG success criterion is an industry-standard set of guidelines that define objective measures. Since WCAG isn’t considered the easiest reading, there are a couple of articles explaining it in easy-to-understand language.
WCAG requirements in plain language
WCAG 2.1 Guidelines Explained with Examples
Before you will create your own checklist based on and condensing the WCAG success criterion, you can use the WebAIM checklist
I also recommend getting familiar with a very digestible Accessibility Not-Checklist
Courses
Accessibility: How to Design for All course by Frank Spillers is a great introduction to accessible design. We can find a lot of examples of how to handle UI in the best possible way, and how to improve usability for all kinds of users.
Why an improved SEO is not the strongest argument to build accessible websites. Free, 2-hour Masterclass: Web Accessibility, the business case.
A free course with the foundation by WCAG.
Content and Writing
Writing for accessibility affects the way we organize content and guide readers through a page. It means choosing the right font type. Following writing guidelines. Or measuring the readability of your text.
- Mailchimp’s Writing for Accessibility guidelines
- How to write Alt Text
- Everything you need to know about alt-texts
- How to include emojis in texts and emails
- Intro to accessible PDFs
- A post about plain language, headings, link text, Alt Text
- Toolkits improving readability Hemingway App and Readable
- A guide to understanding what makes a typeface accessible
In terms of accessible typeface, people with dyslexia often report that the reviled Comic Sans is easier to read. It is because letters seem to stay in place better, with rotations and flipping happening less often. Especially in the case of letters b and p. If we are choosing a typeface with accessibility in mind, we should remember about minimizing the occurrence of mirroring letter shapes.
Terms and Conditions made easy
How to render something we associate with “boring” into something that adds to the user experience?
Testing Personas
GDS Accessibility team created 7 personas to let us experience the web as people with different access needs. After you set up your browser, you can use these profiles to experience the web from the perspective of the personas.
Automated Testing tools
These extensions can be helpful during the first phases. However, to guarantee WCAG conformance, we need to use both automated and manual tests.
- WAVE Browser extension (Chrome, Firefox, and Edge)
- Lighthouse Chrome extension can be helpful during the first phases. It covers many WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements but may miss some points
- PowerMapper A website checker that scans for free first 10 sites. It tests against W3 WCAG and Section 508 checkpoints
Figma Plugins
- A11y — Focus Order helps with designing focus/tab order.
- A11y plugin checks the colour contrast ratio of text on a solid background
- Stark plugin its contrast checker is free, but some of its features are only within the Pro plan
- The already mentioned Hemingway app has also its Figma plugin
Other collections of resources
- A collection of resources to understand how to create accessible colours
- A collection of resources by Microsoft
- A growing list of accessibility tools and resources by Stark Suite
Stay tuned
In my upcoming posts, I’ll be writing about how to break into UX, survive that transition and design your career path.
