It’s become apparent we really aren’t focusing much on the accessibility needs of our aged population; and by aged I’m dumping middle-aged people like me in that group to – that’s anyone 40+.
Now I’m well on the way to being truly on the wrong side of 40, so these accessibly issues are starting to become noticeable day to day on a personal level. So this issue is a little personal.
By focusing on the aged community is not t to say we should ignore the needs of the traditional accessibility community. Just let’s give some consideration to the aged people too.
I have been meaning to get a meetup together for the Perth Web Accessibility community for a while, like about a year.
Well it was good friend and colleague Lisa Herrod in Sydney that inspired me to kick my arse into action. Particualtly after she started the equivalent Sydney accessibility meetup.
The plan is simple to get people with a distinct interest in web accessibility or practicing web accessibility and inclusive design professionals to come along to a regular meetup. Share our knowledge and in general find ways to promote web accessibility and inclusive design within the Perth business and public sectors.
Let’s get some reality on the web accessibility debate.
We all know about WCAG 1, we have all at least had a look at the associated checklists. If you are lucky you may have glanced at WCAG 2.
We all have been developing and designing our sites with semantic content, in compliance with W3C guidelines, using progressive enhancement for the interactive components, unobtrusive Javascript, and graceful degradation of the pages for legacy browsers. Maybe used some of the attributes of ARIA. Sure that’s a no brainer.
We know that doing this will solve most of the accessibility issues.
Gary Barber
I’m an independent User Experience Consultant.
I design interfaces, build information architectures, HTML prototypes, run workshops on UX design, do user research and conduct usability & accessibility testing and audits.
I can work within your existing team or as an external consultant on a contract or adhoc basis.
You can contact me via my company, radharc or just email me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
