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What to tell developers about accessibility?

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From: Karen Mardahl
Date: Apr 17, 2012 11:11AM

Hello

This is a pick-your-brains email. I brashly volunteered to give a 45-minute
talk on accessibility tips at a conference for developers. This is not an
accessibility conference, so it's in the spirit of Jennison Ascunsion and
others who say we need to get out and talk accessibility to the
not-so-usual suspects. It's also a male-dominated group where they were
looking for more female presenters. I think I am the only female presenter
there. Why take the easy road? :)

I will be presenting as a technical communicator who is the go-between
between Subject Matter Experts (the developers) and the "User".

Where I am now:
I will comb @stcaccess tweets over the past year for ideas (I've often
tagged them with #webdev).
I am thinking of discussing things like labels on forms because the .NET
people in the crowd tend to use forms a lot (IMO) and I can encourage
better practices there.
These people are not content writers so maybe alt text is not an issue for
them. However, I'm contemplating suggesting they make alt text mandatory if
they are able to edit that part of, say, a content management system.
I don't think I'll discuss color contrast so much because these are not
designers. There might be front-end people, but there are a lot of back-end
developers who don't touch that sort of thing. I will mention it, but I am
not sure how high a priority it would be for such an audience.
I am contemplating looking at EasyChirp vs Twitter as something built to
make up for what someone else forgot.
I plan to provide good resources for them to go home and study.
Keyboard access must be important to talk about.
I am currently thinking about use cases and speculating how to weave
accessibility into that.
What about ARIA? Is that a good place to start or is that a bit farther
down a wish-list at this point - if the dev person is new at this
accessibility stuff?

What else should I mention?
What would be your number one tip to a developer who is getting his or her
accessibility act together?

I really appreciate any suggestions this list can provide. And I always
credit people in my slide notes!

Thanks!

Regards, Karen Mardahl
http://flavors.me/kmdk