What is accessible design? It’s the design practice, that if done correctly, results in equal access to the web, for everyone, including those with disabilities. It enables those with disabilities to access, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to the web. The ADA defines a person with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. “Disability” in this context, is a legal term rather than a medical one. The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life. However, in the U.S., outside of government institutions, like public schools, reasonable equal access to digital information isn’t protected by law. So it’s up to you to make it so. Some of the disabilities to consider when designing your application include visual, cognitive, audio, motor, and intellectual. Without your thoughtful design, a not insignificant number of people will be challenged to, or may be completely unable to access your work. Why make your work accessible? Beyond increasing your reach, it’s just the right thing to do. In addition to supporting the social inclusion of people with disabilities, accessible design also benefits people without disabilities and members of other underserved populations such as the elderly, and those in rural, or developing countries. At its heart, the web is designed to level the playing field. It’s to be accessible to all, regardless of hardware, language, ability, socioeconomics and location. Designing for accessibility is a realization of this goal. “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” -Tim Berners-Lee --- But what is accessible design? A lot of considerations go into making a design more accessible for disabled people. There are however, specific guidelines for increasing the accessibility of your apps. For example, things like using semantically meaningful HTML. That is the practice of using elements that add meaning to the content. A `

` tag is meaningful. It indicates a paragraph. People know what paragraphs are. `

` tags for containing your nav bar instead of using `

` informs screen reading software that the element is a navigation bar. Semantic HTML helps to set expectations for the disabled consumer of your app. A byproduct of using semantic HTML is improved SEO. Google's algorithms analyze the markup and labels to understand what your site is about. The more semantical your HTML, the more accurate the evaluation will be, and more favorable your SEO. Consistently using the image “alt” attribute, with descriptive text, (for text to speech conversion); ```

``` and choosing low-vision-friendly, high-contrast, color schemes, can make the difference between whether or not your site is usable for visually impaired users. Although all of the following considerations are helpful for many circumstances, they are of particular importance for the specified disability. Visually Impaired Users * Provide text alternatives to images, e.g., Alt text, descriptions of info contained in graphics like charts * Semantic HTML: ```

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Why Accessibility Matters

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