Who is Accessibility for?

Accessibility is about preventing and removing barriers to access for people with disabilities. Accessibility efforts can help other people in the future too. But the people who need access now are reason enough to prioritize it.

We will dive deeper into the goals and outcomes of centering disability and working towards more inclusive workplaces in Organizational Skill Building later in this workshop.

The whole reason for making something accessible is so people with disabilities can use it. Keep this in mind while juggling multiple priorities.

An example of increasing awareness

I recently gave a presentation at work on accessibility engineering. One of my coworkers asked whether he really needed to include h1-h6 headings if they risked being the wrong heading level. I gently pointed out his bias in this perspective, and described how important headings can be to someone using a screen reader.

Headings create a semantic structure that help blind people understand and navigate a document. (Headings also help SEO, reader modes, and more.)

By highlighting the reasons users need HTML headings, my colleagues understood their purpose much better. They could move forward with practical guidance.

This is a positive example of the kind of conversation we can have when we discuss the purpose of accessibility and the stakes of leaving it out.