3 Ways We Fail to Take Accessibility Seriously

https://css-tricks.com/why-dont-developers-take-accessibility-seriously/

“Now, imagine that an accessibility subject-matter expert comes along and essentially tells you that not only are you not particularly smart, but you have been doing things wrong for a long time.”

[…]

“The thing is, these users have been ignored for so long that it can feel like they are screaming into a void. Isn’t anyone listening? Doesn’t anyone care? It seems like the only way to even be acknowledged is to demand the treatment that the law affords them! Even then, they often feel ignored and forgotten. Are lawsuits the only recourse?”

[…]

“Web designers have a higher challenge—their artistic vision needs to be usable by everyone. Challenge yourself to move the conversation into a different space: you just haven’t found the right design yet. It’s a false choice to think that a design can either be beautiful or accessible; don’t fall into that trap.”

[…]

“We need to acknowledge that designers and developers need to be learning about accessibility much sooner in their careers. I think of it with this analogy: Imagine you’ve learned a foreign language, but you only learned that language’s slang. Your words are technically correct, but there are a lot of native speakers of that language who will never be able to understand you. JavaScript-first web developers are often technically correct from a JavaScript perspective, but they also frequently create solutions that leave out a whole lotta people in the end.”

[…]

“The thing is, we can only start to be compassionate toward other people once we are able to be compassionate toward ourselves. Sure, we messed up—but we don’t have to stay ignorant.”

[…]

“Here’s the cool part: not only do we have the technology, we are literally the ones that can fix it. We can get up and try to do better tomorrow. We can make some time to read about accessibility, and keep reading about it every day until we know it just as well as we do other things.”