This post is the first in a series of posts in which I discuss and reflect upon what I've learnt from reading Inclusive Components. The book, written by Heydon Pickering, explores how web developers can create accessible components with semantic HTML, and how we can avoid using JavaScript unnecessarily by leveraging CSS to add both functionality and styling to our web pages.
Each chapter focusses on a different component. Amongst others, Pickering talks us through toggles buttons and menu buttons, collapsible section and check boxes - components we interact with on the web as users everyday. But as Pickering points out in his introduction, such components are often badly designed and executed, and therefore the web interfaces they form part of become all the more difficult to use.
Accessibility isn't going anywhere, and we're already (rightfully) at a point where accessible websites a necessity rather than a nice to have. It's very much a case of when, not if, features need to be reworked and updated to meet the increasingly rigorous guidelines around accessible design.
Through this series of posts, I hope to create a conversation between Pickering's views on creating inclusive components and my own experiences of developing accessible (and sometimes less than accessible) interfaces. I'll begin, unsurprisingly, with chapter one - toggle buttons.
Top comments (1)
Followed, looking forward to seeing this series unfold.