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Accessibility resources

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Putting a lot of resources in one place. I’ll come back, add to it and update on a regular basis.

word accessibility with the first and last letter of the word in black and the letters in between in red and numbered. There are 11 letter between the initial 'a' and the last 'y', that's why we say a11y
Why A11Y is the short for Accessibility

I’m not an expert. I’ve spend a lot of time educating myself since 2016 via articles, video, conferences, following disabled people and accessibility experts on Twitter.

If you spot a term or something I should not be using, please tell me. I keep realising I’ve done things wrong in the past, so I keep adjusting. It’s a journey.

More people want to learn too, so this post will be something I can share easily when asked for resources.

Note that there are lots of places with resources already like:

You can also subscribe to newsletters:

In this post you will find resources on:

General awareness and advice for anyone

The Big Hack is a good source, for example: Accessibility and disability: fact and figures or this infographic.

Some blog posts I have for people new to accessibility:

collage of 8 posters from the Home Office showing we you should do / don't do regarding designing for deaf or hard of hearing, users on the autistic spectrum, dyslexia, anxiety, physical or motor disabilities, low vision, or screen readers
Do and Don’t posters from the Home Office available here

There is a new poster (25/11/2022) made by 3 content designers across DWP and HMRC:

poster for Designing for users with dyscalculia or low numeracy Do… round numbers up to the nearest whole number. Do leave space around numbers. Do fill in the information you already have. Do use sentences to add context about numbers. Do let people include spaces when entering numbers. Do user research with people who struggle with numbers. Do not… use decimals unless it's money. Do not overwhelm people with too much content. Do not expect users to repeat or remember numbers. Do not use tables or grids without explaining what the numbers mean. Do not rush users to enter numbers accurately. Do not force people to enter a number or do a sum to verify themselves.
Source for this post as PDF or as HTML page

AbilityNet has lots of resources worth checking like these factsheets or this video: Don’t disable me: How can you avoid creating barriers for disabled people.

Neurodiversity

We are finally hearing much more about it. Neurodiversity covers Autism, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), dyslexia, dyspraxia, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), Tourette Syndrome and more.

Here is a really good video from Rachel Morgan-Trimmer, you should check her blog too.

About Dyspraxia: A disability that does not count and this: Living and working with dyspraxia

Check the DWP Autism and Neurodiversity Toolkit for staff and managers

Lots of videos to understand dyslexia better by Dyslexia Bytes

“Autism is a spectrum” doesn’t mean what you think

People to follow, blog and projects

I’ll keep adding, there are so many of them!

Meet-ups and conferences

Accessibility Manchester have been running great events online this year, you should follow them on Twitter and check them on Youtube for example this video about Real world accessibility stories.

Accessibility Scotland has lots of videos on their website.

Training

Practical

Talking about disabled people – their lived experience

Accessible events and venues

Photos

Reviews

Checklists

Colours

Assistive Technologies (A.T.)

There is more to it than just screen readers, some links and videos to learn more:

A video which will give you an overview:

How Leonie Watson navigates some websites with her screen reader (JAWS)

Kristy Viers has a lot of good videos on her Youtube channel.

Todd Stabelfeldt who is quadriplegic also has lots of videos on his channel. This one is a demo he did for an Apple Keynote

Angie’s use of Assistive Technology at school

Make your own presentation

You might want to do your own presentation but you don’t know where to start?

I have shared slides you can copy, change and make your own if you want and some advice on how to make them accessible too. Check these two blog posts: links to the slides are in there.

For developers

One free course by Udacity, web Accessibility

Material created for Code Your Future

I’ve created some material for Students of Code Your Future where I volunteer. Feel free to reuse these slides. Let me know if you spot anything that is not correct.

There are links and sources of images and more in the speaker notes.

Intro to web development accessibility – part 1(General awareness)

Accessibility for developers – basic – part 2

Accessibility for developers – intermediate – part 3

Good videos

Sara Soueidan (worth following her on Twitter as well) very clear, she has more talks to look at, blog post and articles:

In the video from Sara Soueidan, she mentions this little video where a fake video game illustrates how a screen reader works.

Russel Weakley gives a very good explanation of what is an accessible name:

Manuel Matuzović on writing CSS with Accessibility in Mind:

Sarah Higley on how to debug:

About Suzanne Aitchison, you can also check her website

Accessibility testing: tips to succeed by Alistair Duggin:

logo with t12t, this is the numeronym of Accessibility but in Swedish

Testing your website – your code

I’ll keep adding to this post. This is a good way for me to ‘tidy up’ the many links I’ve kept over the years.