Welcome to my regular article series "Bitesize Accessibility" that provides developers with quick and hopefully entertaining information on accessibility!
Accessibility doesn't have to be time consuming, or complex. Learning a little every few weeks, and spending even 5 minutes every hour or two while coding can have huge payoffs.
These include:
- not having to refactor an entire codebase after release
- reaching the 20 to 25% of the population that has a disability (Reference 1)
- writing better organized code that can be picked up by search engines
- being a better coworker and/or manager for devs with disabilities, neurodivergence, and deafness.
- increasing your team's problem solving skills by widening your hiring pool
Bitesize Accessibility is going to broaden the discussion on accessibility. Accessibility isn't just something we implement for our users who use screen readers. People with disabilities, neurodivergence, and deafness cover such a wide range of accessibility needs and tools.
Accessibility also applies to devs, designers, and content creators with disabilities, neurodivergence, and/or deafness. I see little discussion about implementing accessibility for devs, designers, and content creators - unless it's started by disabled, neurodivergent, or deaf developers, designers, or content creators. When I have, it's been the last thing mentioned in diversity, equity, and inclusion. (If you've see a recent article, video, or other resource about devs with disabilities please let me know.)
What Each Bitesize Accessibility Article Will Include
Every article will include:
- Three disability, neurodivergence, and/or deafness facts
- A short bio of a developer, designer, or content creator/writer
- A short code example, CodePen, and/or tool review
- One or more links to resources
- A references list where appropriate
Frequency of Articles
Starting January 2023, articles will come out every two weeks. This is both sustainable given all my other projects, and regular enough for readers to follow. As I'm starting earlier than planned, the publication schedule in November and December 2022 will likely be irregular (unless there's more skunks spraying at 4:30am!).
Happy Monday!
Cheers,
Liz - GingerKiwi
Monday, November 7th, 2022
References
- Stuart Morris, Gail Fawcett, Laurent Brisebois, Jeffrey Hughes. Stats Canada. 2018-11-28. "A demographic, employment and income profile of Canadians with disabilities aged 15 years and over, 2017" in Reports on Disability and Accessibility in Canada: Canadian Survey on Disability Reports. ___
About the Author
Hello, I'm Elizabeth (Liz) McCready, aka Ginger Kiwi.
I'm a frontend web developer, experienced technical and web content writer, and open source project creator. In my former career I was an assistive technology specialist, special education consultant, and academic coach. I'm passionate about solving puzzles with others, advocating for accessibility, knitting, and volunteering. (I stopped counting at 15,000 volunteer hours)
You can find me online at:
- 💼 LinkedIn: elizabethmccready
- 📰 My Blog: Ginger Kiwi: Exploring technology, design, and accessibility
- ✉️ Email: liz@gingerkiwi.dev
- 🟥 Toronto JavaScript Slack: 'Liz GingerKiwi.dev'
After Matter
This post is serving as the front page for Bitesize Accessibility, so there's some extra content.
Why This Series is Starting Months Early Instead of January, 2023
This is going to be one of the amusing facts I look back on in several years. I had been planning to start this series in January 2023. That would give me time to write ahead a few articles. However, this morning (Monday, November 7, 2023) I was woken up at 4:30am by a skunk spraying right outside my windows.
My entire home stank. Even after Lysole air spraying my entire place, brushing my teeth, and chewing bubblemint gum, my home still stank and I couldn't get back to sleep.
Instead of tossing and turning, I got up, made coffee, fed the cats, and started writing. Two hours later I have a GitHub repo, this introduction article, a good first draft of the first article. I also have three cats who are very happy they got their wet food early, I've cleaned the kitchen and had breakfast.
Article List
When new articles are published links and summaries will be added below. I'll likely put this section at the top of this post once there's a few published articles.
001 Series Introduction - About Bitesize Accessibility
002 Semantic HTML - Heading Levels
Copyright
CODE: The GNU GPLv3 applies to the code in this repo and articles, and associated CodePens. Please share and become an accessibility advocate!
ARTICLES: The author maintains ALL copyright to the articles (.md files). These articles may eventually turn into a book. Quoting my article writing with attribution is fine - especially if you're advocating accessibility. Plagiarism is not. Don't make me use my ex-teacher voice! ;-)
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