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Re: What to tell developers about accessibility?

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From: Karen Mardahl
Date: Apr 17, 2012 1:41PM

Thank you, John, Sarah, Birkir, Ranti, November!

These are super replies. I really like the keyboard starting point. That
makes a lot of sense thinking of developers I have known over the years.
The background of these people is a bit varied so I need to watch where I
go and where I focus. I'll be sorting that out as I gather my material. I
must add that one other focus I really like is the "moral" of a series of
blog posts Karl Groves recently wrote. He pointed out how he aims to do top
quality work and from that, all things flow, so to speak. (My
paraphrasing.) Somehow, I plan to squeeze in that idea as a guiding
philosophy: the standards, the quality.

I'm giving the talk May 10 here in Copenhagen. I'll share my final results
with the list.

Thanks for your support. That's half the battle!

Regards, Karen Mardahl

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 7:11 PM, Karen Mardahl < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 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
>