#GuildChat for 5/17/19: Accessibility in Practice

Our next #GuildChat takes place Friday, May 17th at 11am PT / 2pm ET. Our topic for this week’s chat is Accessibility in Practice.

Since the vote for last week’s GuildChat topic was close, clearly the interest in the topic with the second highest votes – accessibility – was high as well. That’s why we decided to feature it for this week’s discussion. While accessibility is often a component of our work for legal reasons, it’s more than just a required checkbox. We also simply want the experiences and content we create to be available to everyone who needs them, and a better understanding of accessibility helps us remove barriers that get in the way of access and use.

Buying in to the idea that accessibility matters is relatively easy. Actually making our work accessible, though, can be a more complex undertaking, including needing to understand the breadth of accessibility needs, the features that can support them, and the difficulty of solutions that work in theory but stumble in actual use.

This week we’ll share our challenges and then pool our knowledge of practical tips and resources for creating accessible experiences that go beyond just checking a legal box and actually are effective in the real world.

Prospective questions:

Q1. What challenges do you currently face with designing and developing with accessibility in mind? #GuildChat
Q2. Just because something meets the letter of the law for accessibility doesn’t always mean it functions well in real life. How can we go beyond checkbox accessibility and make sure it’s actually usable? #GuildChat
Q3. Accessibility begins with empathy. How can we ensure greater empathy in our design processes? #GuildChat
Q4. When people think of building in accessibility features they often first think of subtitles and supporting screen readers. What other accessibility features should we be aware of and consider using? #GuildChat
Q5. There are times when building in accessibility features for one group has benefits for everyone – for instance having subtitles on videos. What other examples of this can you think of? #GuildChat
Q6. If an employer or client pushes back against including certain accessibility features in a design, what are some ways to help them see the value in them? #GuildChat
Q7. What emerging technologies do you see having the greatest impact on accessibility in the near future? Explain. #GuildChat
Q8. Accessibility is a broad topic. What are some resources you use or people/organizations you follow in order to better understand the wide range of accessibility needs? #GuildChat

Missed this GuildChat? Don’t worry – you can still read through what happened on our Wakelet transcript of the chat!