I had an idea to start a new challenge, and I’d like as many people as possible to participate. Working together, taking baby steps, we can all improve the accessibility of the web a little bit at a time. Like I’ve said before, some is better than none.
Web accessibility is nothing new or glamorous, but it’s very important and often gets overlooked for various reasons. There might be time or budget constraints, fear of making mistakes, or just plain naivete about what accessibility means and how to get started implementing it.
Make The Commitment
It doesn’t take much. Add a comment to this post (make sure you include your Twitter handle if you have one), and tell everyone what site you’re going to improve. Then, commit to making one small accessibility improvement to that site each week. It can be a tiny thing, just do something that improves the site. I’ll make a Twitter list and a hashtag to follow so that we can all keep each other motivated and ask for reviews and tips.
Ideas To Get You Started
- Provide text alternatives for images
- Label your forms correctly
- Fix your line height and line width
- Evaluate the contrast of text versus background
- Provide keyboard shortcuts
Get Involved and Make a Difference!
If you’re a beginner and don’t know where to start, have a look at this article: “Getting Started with Web Accessibility” on The Web Squeeze.
If you’re a lurker, please take this opportunity to pitch in. There’s no need to hide; we’re all friends here.
Greetings!
I'll accept the challenge. Twitter handle is @cajebo Not only will I gain new appreciation of this skillset, I'll be learning news production skills and improve my chosen guinea pig website. I think I'll do it to a site recently launched athttp://www.graystreeexperts.com
Awesome! I've got you on my Twitter list now.
I'm in. I try it on my personal blog first in case I screw it all up, then roll it out to my other blog/site.http://mypov.com
Awesome! I've got you on my Twitter list now, too. The hashtag will come soon.