Do you develop with accessibility in mind?
I mainly work on websites, WordPress & Craft CMS being my primary CMS(s) of choice. Recently, I've landed 2 projects to test for accessibility (WCAG 2.0 ). Ignoring issues produced by the authors, to my surprise, the website failed in multiple areas that I consider basic for a developer.
- use landmark areas
- have headings in order
- have language on HTML tag
- have :focus on links, buttons ...
and the list can go on and on.
What is your experience with building accessible websites/apps and do you care about it? Why not?
Accessibility is a skill not only should you do it. A11y is something you can add to your skill set as a dev.
As I posted below, I was tasked to ensure those websites are accessible and give a report back on what needs to be changed. I was curious if other devs don't care about it and why not.
For my personal work, always, without question.
For my employment, most of the product owners I've dealt with only care about it a little.
My view is this: If your product targets a specific audience that will never depend on accessiblity standards, then that's fine. If your target audience is anything else, why would you purposely exclude them?
Accessibility is a relatively new requirement, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of sites aren't in compliance with the rules. In pursuit of getting stuff done quick I imagine accessibility stuff is often overlooked.
In terms of compliance, it's absolutely something you should be keeping in mind. Probably the biggest reason is that, at least here in the US, it's the law. There have a lot of high profile cases where companies were sued for not having accessible sites/apps. IANAL, but I think small companies don't have to abide by the same ADA laws, but if you hope to grow it is something you will have to deal with.
I think you got my post wrong. I was tasked to test those websites for accessibility and give a report back.
I wouldn't consider it a new requirement. I've contracted for an agency like 7-8 years ago that was working in the health care industry, and they wanted everything to pass. I guess I'm just surprised that something as basic as writing semantic HTML is being ignored. I was just curious if others do try to write accessible code