Accessibility: where to start

Web accessibility is a really broad topic, and it's not yet a standardized one. For the elderly ones reading, it's almost like the state of CSS back in the 90s!

But it's a topic that has to be considered wisely for a bunch of reasons (economic, social, future-proofing...) but where to start? This is a question that torments both the seasoned developer/designer and the newbie one. Fear not: in these articles we will tackle the a11y (the numeronym for "accessibility") as much practicly as I can. If you want you can dive deep to understand all the "why"s and "because"s or just read a couple of lines and be ready to go.

We start with the banalest statement, even before talking about WAI-ARIA roles and attributes.

"Be aware of the elements you're using and you'll be more than halfway to make a fully accessible application!"

That means that you should use tables to put data in them, not to make your layouts (everybody knows that), but that also shouldn't use divs as links. If an HTML element already exists for a specific functionality, you should use that as much as possible, and use something else in extremely limited cases.

First thing first...

...then, take a look at the basic elements HTML has to offer, and be sure to understand what are they for. Try to develop some kind of sensibility about that: you'll find it more interesting, easier to apply and understand.

HTML offers really a lot (and I mean A LOT) of elements to choose between. These are for the largest part already well supported by screen readers. I'll address mainly Screen Readers (SR in short) for the sake of brevity but under the hood there are important considerations about future-proofing.

However, you can already step up your game with a handful of well used tags, that represent the largest majority of elements that we all usually find in pages and applications.

Back to the question "where to start"? Every element is good to go, honestly. If you cannot make up your mind, try understanding the difference between links and buttons!

Accessibility, as already said, is a really huge topic, so don't think you'll need to make it all perfect since the first attempt. Take your time, and most importantly, one step at a time.