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Accessibility (according to people with actual disabilities)

Last week, Safia Abdalla tweeted:

I’m curious to know: if you have a disability, what’s the hardest thing about browsing the web?

She received a bunch of awesome responses, and summarized the common themes in a blog post.

If you build things for the web, this is essential reading. Like, right now. Seriously, go read it right now.

Here are a few of the things that really stood out for me.

Large blocks of text are challenging for people with certain cognitive impairments (including things like ADHD)

Huge paragraphs. A page on Wikipedia often consists of many long paragraphs with long sentences. I lose my place within seconds.- Ava Jarvis Art

This one was a surprise to me. Fortunately, my passion for super small paragraphs (something that drove my English teacher nuts) is a boon on the web.

Small text sucks

This isn’t a surprise to me, but… I often hear people talk about how easy it is to zoom in on modern browsers.

Counterpoint:

Fonts are often too small and sites break when I increase font sizes.

And another:

My daughter has low vision and has to use 300-500% magnification. Many web sites are hard to navigate at this level

Color edge-cases

I’ve written a handful of articles about proper user of color, and how link color affects colorblind visitors’ ability to use your site.

One thing I’ve taken for granted is that the color blue I use on many of my sites provides good contrast for colorblind individuals. However, people who use certain color-shifting apps may run into issues with blue links (a surprise to me).

Sleep disorder: I have to read after 5pm with f.lux cranked up all the way, so sites that assume hyperlinks can be blue w/no underline…

Even more!

This was just a surface skim. There’s so much good stuff in that post. Go read it now!