Ask the UXperts: Accessible design: which everyone do you mean? — with Derek Featherstone

A vision impaired, wheelchair-bound user waves his fist angrily at an inaccessible website on screen.

Accessibility is not a checkbox. It’s not perfect code and it’s not just about accommodating those that are differently-abled or challenged.

For years we’ve been told to provide more context for screen-reader users. In doing so, are we breaking the patterns for people that use voice recognition software?

We need to make our design accessible for everyone, regardless of what technology they are using : people with mobility or dexterity impairments, low-vision, and even different literacy or cultural differences.

In this session you’ll learn practical approaches to help you design and build things that go beyond screen reader compatibility and deeper into truly accessible and inclusive design.

The Details

Where: Our dedicated ‘Ask the UXperts’ Slack chann el (You’ll need to request an invitation if you haven’t yet joined our Slack channel)
When: 2pm Thursday 30 March PST or 8am Friday 31 March AEDT (or find out what time that is for you)

Meet Derek Featherstone

Derek Featherstone has been working as a web professional since 1999 and is an internationally known speaker and authority on accessibility and web design. He leads the team at Simply Accessible, based in Ottawa, Canada.

Derek always puts the user first and strives to make the web a better place by designing experiences that are easy to use for everyone, including people with disabilities. Derek’s ideal accessible experience combines engaging and rich content with brilliant design and technical development excellence. That user-centred focus sets the course for Simply Accessible, and—more importantly—their clients.

How to Ask Your Questions

If you can’t make the live session but have questions, we’d love to collect them ahead of time and we’ll ask Derek on your behalf. You can ask them in the comments below. We’ll publish the responses (along with the full transcript) in the days following the session.

Here are a few questions to get you started:

Is it actually possible to make our work accessible to everyone, or will we always need to make compromises?
Are there cases where it is reasonable to make assumptions about the audience?
Do you see cultural diversity having more of an effect on our work in the future?

How does Ask the UXperts work?

These sessions run for approximately an hour and best of all, they don’t cost a cent. We use a dedicated public Slack channel. That means that there is no audio or video, but a full transcript will be posted up on here in the days following the session.