On designing for blind and low-vision users
written by Daniel Angel for the Accessibility section
⇒06 Nov 2009
One of the things we focus on at Koodoz is making our sites accessible. We try to bring all our sites to a minimum standard that will make it easy for users with disabilities to access our sites.
Previously, I’ve had some of the sites that I’ve done, tested for accessibility in focus groups. Unfortunately, they were always held by third parties who were not able to technically interpret test subjects’ concerns in a way that was really helpful for us. I’d get reports with things like “User couldn’t make their way to page X”. No reasons, no detail. Nevertheless, I’d read a lot of theory regarding what to do and how to do it, and always tried to implement most of it.
Recently, however, an awesome friend from my master’s course, who is visually-impaired, needed help building a website, so I offered to help her. It was a win-win situation: she would learn to hand-code some good (x)HTML and I would get an awesome, first-hand assessment of my accessibility skills. Here’s what I learned. Read on!