Accessibility

Accessible Practices are Good Practices

The Other Humans

Many of our accessibility decisions are grounded in the principles of Digital Hospitality. As humans that make digital products for fellow humans, accessibility is not some gold-medal act of heroism: it is a core and essential right for preserving human dignity. It is a simple duty we believe we are expected to do for each other, and so we do it to the best of our ability.

Speaking as designers and developers, the practices behind digital accessibility also happen to have perfect overlap with what we consider to be simply good practices in general. As it turns out, practices that include as many people as possible, are practices that are universally appreciated, and make for overall positive user experiences. Funny how that works!

Practical Practices

Many of the most fundamental Level A criteria are what most would consider no-brainers: your site should have about the same layout on every page, with things listed in about the same order and in about the same places. If your navigation menu is at the top of the page, it should stay there, and the links in it stay in the same order. No kidding, right?

However, the benefits can be more subtle as well. Proper heading structure and HTML markup doesn’t just help screen readers: it helps any software that’s browsing your site - your SEO might thank you. Color contrast requirements aren’t meant to stifle design: ensuring key content contrasts well with its surroundings makes sure the components visually “pop” and that users are aware of them. If you’re wanting to show off your site’s custom widget, why wouldn’t you make it controllable with the keyboard as well?

Everyone’s Duty

Accessibility is not just a quality assurance matter, it involves the entire team. A good design, by definition, is an accessible design, because we believe accessibility is a requirement for a design being good. Similarly for code, if we’re not producing accessible code or markup, then we must not be producing very good code, because code that gets the job done properly, is code that gets the job done in an inclusive way.

Accessibility covers a range of tasks throughout the project and can’t simply be left to the end. We’ve incorporated accessibility checks into initial project designs as well as inspecting code during the end-of-project QA passes. Not only are we catching more issues, earlier, but the team as a whole is getting immersed in learning accessible practices through constant exposure.

We want to lead the way and help others along that path. Please contact us with any questions about accessibility and how to move toward inclusiveness.

9 appointments Remaining (Last Updated August 16)

Book FREE 30 Minute Strategy Call with our CEO

We’ve opened up 10 appointments to meet directly with our CEO, Ty Fujimura, to see if Cantilever may be right for you.

What's Included
Current Site Review

Ty will personally analyze your site ahead of time and arrive to the call with actionable recommendations.

Initial Plan

You and Ty will discuss your needs and whether to start with a New Website or Tune-Up.

Initial Pricing

Ty will provide a ballpark estimate to replace or improve your site.

Get a Free

Consultation

Tell us about your organization and online presence. If we think we can be a good partner for you, we’ll set up a time to connect and talk through your needs, free of charge.

Get a Free

Consultation

Tell us about your organization and online presence. If we think we can be a good partner for you, we’ll set up a time to connect and talk through your needs, free of charge.

Thanks for contacting Cantilever. We’ll get back to you within one business day.
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Accessibility Standards at Cantilever

Accessible Practices are Good Practices

In our previous article, we discussed going beyond a legal minimum to aim for Level AAA criteria, as well as proactively conforming to WCAG 2.2. In this final article, we want to elaborate on the concept that accessible practices are simply universally good practices.

Aug 23, 2022
by
Cantilever Team

The Other Humans

Many of our accessibility decisions are grounded in the principles of Digital Hospitality. As humans that make digital products for fellow humans, accessibility is not some gold-medal act of heroism: it is a core and essential right for preserving human dignity. It is a simple duty we believe we are expected to do for each other, and so we do it to the best of our ability.

Speaking as designers and developers, the practices behind digital accessibility also happen to have perfect overlap with what we consider to be simply good practices in general. As it turns out, practices that include as many people as possible, are practices that are universally appreciated, and make for overall positive user experiences. Funny how that works!

Practical Practices

Many of the most fundamental Level A criteria are what most would consider no-brainers: your site should have about the same layout on every page, with things listed in about the same order and in about the same places. If your navigation menu is at the top of the page, it should stay there, and the links in it stay in the same order. No kidding, right?

However, the benefits can be more subtle as well. Proper heading structure and HTML markup doesn’t just help screen readers: it helps any software that’s browsing your site - your SEO might thank you. Color contrast requirements aren’t meant to stifle design: ensuring key content contrasts well with its surroundings makes sure the components visually “pop” and that users are aware of them. If you’re wanting to show off your site’s custom widget, why wouldn’t you make it controllable with the keyboard as well?

Everyone’s Duty

Accessibility is not just a quality assurance matter, it involves the entire team. A good design, by definition, is an accessible design, because we believe accessibility is a requirement for a design being good. Similarly for code, if we’re not producing accessible code or markup, then we must not be producing very good code, because code that gets the job done properly, is code that gets the job done in an inclusive way.

Accessibility covers a range of tasks throughout the project and can’t simply be left to the end. We’ve incorporated accessibility checks into initial project designs as well as inspecting code during the end-of-project QA passes. Not only are we catching more issues, earlier, but the team as a whole is getting immersed in learning accessible practices through constant exposure.

We want to lead the way and help others along that path. Please contact us with any questions about accessibility and how to move toward inclusiveness.

Aug 23, 2022
by
Cantilever Team
Edited by
9 appointments Remaining (Last Updated August 16)

Book FREE 30 Minute Strategy Call with our CEO

We’ve opened up 10 appointments to meet directly with our CEO, Ty Fujimura, to see if Cantilever may be right for you.

What's Included
Current Site Review

Ty will personally analyze your site ahead of time and arrive to the call with actionable recommendations.

Initial Plan

You and Ty will discuss your needs and whether to start with a New Website or Tune-Up.

Initial Pricing

Ty will provide a ballpark estimate to replace or improve your site.

Get a Free

Consultation

Tell us about your organization and online presence. If we think we can be a good partner for you, we’ll set up a time to connect and talk through your needs, free of charge.

Get a Free

Consultation

Tell us about your organization and online presence. If we think we can be a good partner for you, we’ll set up a time to connect and talk through your needs, free of charge.

Thanks for contacting Cantilever. We’ll get back to you within one business day.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.