About this talk
This talk explores the critical importance of accessibility in technology and the implications of the European Accessibility Act. The speaker highlights that 16% of the global population has some form of disability, emphasizing that many popular websites fail to meet accessibility standards, which excludes potential clients. Accessibility ensures that technology can be used by individuals with various abilities, including those with low vision or motor disabilities. The session stresses the need for developers to integrate accessibility from the beginning of their work processes, providing practical advice such as using semantic HTML and testing software with various assistive technologies. The speaker advocates for viewing accessibility as a craft rather than a compliance issue, aiming for code that is usable by everyone.
Full transcript
Sorry, I had to start in English. I was so excited. Well, I'm going to bring you back to reality and we'll talk about accessibility and not that much technical stuff. But why accessibility? Why accessibility matters? Well, uh 16% of the global population have some for sort of disability. This means 1 billion and 3 million people have some kind of uh in the eur European Union 48% of
the people with disabilities have uh have been employed compared to 73% of people with no disability which as you see is not equal and 95 to 96% of the top million websites have accessibility issues. So actually they're excluding a lot of people and these people are also potential clients. Have you ever had too much alcohol in to the point that you were not able to call a
cab because everything is hard to focus and tap? Well, imagine that this is the reality for somebody. And I'm not talking about the alcohol. I'm talking about somebody with motor disability. And sometimes it's also about you feeling tired, distracted, having one hand or using a phone with a screen cracks in the sunlight. This also is something that is making some difficulties. But actually what is accessibility? Accessibility
assures that technology can be used by people with various abilities like people who have low vision, people who are uh having some cognitive difficulties and people using assistive technology like screen readers, voice input devices, people that rely only on keyboard. And basically this is anyone that is using the software in a way that you maybe never imagined, not the way you think it is used. And yes,
this might include yourself, future self in like two two decades time. Who knows? We are aging. what's now the European accessibility act? This is a new regulation. It has been enforced this June. It targets uh private businesses like banking, telecommunications, e-commerce, ticketing, media non-compliance now means that there might be fines, lawsuits, and also bad PR for the companies. What does this mean to you? Your code is
now regulated. The accessibility issues are now compliance violations. So there are no more edge cases or no more nice to haves. Every update triggers the compliance. So anything you incorporate in your software, any update, any new feature has to be accessible. And you might start asking, "But what should I do?" Well, start with the small stuff. Read the law. Learn the guidelines. Learn the standards. Provide some
training. Integrate accessibility early in your working process. Use more semantic HTML. Label your form fields properly. Make the buttons say what they do and do what they say. Try navigating with just a keyboard. Run your software through a screen reader. Zoom it to 200%. Is it still working? And try to involve real people with disabilities in the process just to see how they use it and what
are their struggles. And of course, use some tools that will support you. Not everything is has to be done manually. Use tools to check for low contrast, for missing alternative text for images, and for broken heading structure. Accessibility starts in your component logic. It does not start in the CSS. It's really important to know that dynamic content make sure it is announced properly because people with screen
readers rely on that. If something changes, they need to know that it has been changed. They cannot see it. Models trap focus them. Make the focus go there. Go there and stay there because the person needs to know that there is something they need to do and they has to rem have to remain there until they do it. expand accessibility shouldn't be just about compliance. It should
be a craftsmanship. If your code can be used by everyone, it is not done. code like everybody is watching because now they do. Thank you. If you are more interested in the accessibility topic, you might follow this page for monthly meetups on the accessibility method. Okay folks, I think we have a couple of minutes.
