Why I Advocate for Website Accessibility

Before I dive in, in case you missed the post, it lists four, key benefits of accessible website design. These are:

• It grows your website's reach
• Everyone benefits
• It improves SEO
• It's the right thing to do

I encourage you to read the post if you haven't already, and to leave your thoughts in the comments. I'll expand on these in a future post.

My motivation for advocating is quite personal

I've wanted to share the post for some time for a very personal reason, a reason summed up in the second image of the post:

Disability is a club that any of us can join, at any time, whether briefly or permanently.

While the disabilities that I have, which I'll talk about in a bit, I don't consider to be too intense, they've motivated me to be more involved in advocating for accessible website design.

If you're not familiar, disability is defined as:

Persons are considered to have a disability if they have a limitation, restriction or impairment, which has lasted, or is likely to last, for at least six months and restricts everyday activities.

Disability is something that I've experienced personally over the last 15 years (or so), as I've navigated my way through a rather tough, not to mention rough, health journey. Gladly, I've more or less made a complete recovery, as much as is practically possible.

I'll spare you most of the details, but from the first time I visited a GP (General Practitioner) it took about seven years to diagnose everything that was going on, and to start on the way to recovery. Seven years full of visits to doctors and specialist doctors. Seven years of wondering if it was all in my head. Seven years of wondering if I would every get any answers. Seven year full of reading and experimentation to get me back to the sense of health that I enjoy today.

Before it all started, I was living what I considered a normal life, one with a feeling of invincibility that so many of us in our youth feel. That's understandable. When we're young, fit, and healthy, we feel like nothing could ever touch us. Perhaps sadly, it's only as we age or the more that we experience health problems or disabilities, whether large or small, that we begin to appreciate that the human body is far from invincible.

Regardless, one day in my mid-to-late 30's, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, my health began to unravel. To cut a long story short, I was diagnosed with Leaky Gut Syndrome, had a bulging disc in my spine causing sciatic nerve pain, and I can no longer digest gluten — among several other issues. I lived on pain medication, slept up to 13 hours a day — yet felt completely rundown — had shooting pain from my waist to my toes, had erratic brain fog, and so much more. Perhaps needless to say, life had become miserable.

Now, none of these issues really affected my ability to use computers or websites — well, other than my ability to concentrate for any length of time. However, they helped me more deeply appreciate the importance of health, and how we can all be affected — at any time of our lives — to one degree or another.

In addition to this health journey, about three years ago I started another one, one that I'll just have to accept. Before you ask, it's neither serious nor life-threatening. It's called Presbyopia. If you're not familiar with the term, quoting Vision Eye Institute Australia:

During the ageing process, everyone will eventually experience changes to their vision where it becomes harder to focus on near objects. This is known as age-related loss of near focus, or presbyopia, and is usually seen in people over 45. Most people need to start wearing reading glasses to deal with presbyopia, but not everyone will be affected to the same extent.

Long story short, I have to wear glasses to work at a computer and to read. My glasses are quite mild. But, as the months and years have rolled on since I first noticed it, my ability to work at a computer screen or read without them has gradually faded, such that I usually always have my reading glasses close by now.

This disability, I'm sure you can appreciate, will have a direct impact on my ability to use a website. I experienced this again, earlier today. Just after I'd ordered a tea at a local cafe, here in Bundaberg, and was getting my laptop set up to begin work, I realised that I'd left my reading glasses at home.

Sure, it would only have been about 10 - 15 minutes home to get them. But, I'd just driven 10 - 15 minutes to get to the cafe, plus the time to find a park, order a tea, and start getting myself settled. I wasn't about to do it all over again, so did my best without them.

If I tried to work without my glasses, what was the experience going to be like? Would I be able to work properly? Or, would I just be drinking the tea and heading home?

Gladly, all of the websites I use for work allowed for increasing the font size without breaking the sites. But, after about three hours of work, I could feel my eyes noticeably more tired than they otherwise would be. Okay, to be fair, the glare that day didn't help.

This experience might sound quite laughable. Is such a common-place condition really a concern? In the grand scheme of things, likely not. But, it's a disability nonetheless, one that's further helped me appreciate website accessibility that much more.

What's more, it's very common. Did you know that 1 in 10 people in Australia aged over 65 will experience loss of sight (8.7% of the population or 169,000)? For those between 25 and 64 it drops to 3.9% or 69,000. And, for those under 25 the number drops to 2.7% or 17,000. All up, that's around 255,000 people who will experience some loss of sight in their lifetimes. Out of a population of around 27.7 million, that's a decent proportion.

I'm pretty confident that the statistics in other countries would be similar.

I want to help make a change

Given these experiences, I want to help ensure that disabilities are not seen as only affecting a small percentage of the population. Rather, that they actually a pretty significant proportion of the population, so that website accessibility needs to be a central aspect of website design.

Up until recently, though, I was uncertain of exactly how. But, after some personal reflection — and given that I've been building websites and web-based applications for over 20 years — I felt that two positive first steps would be:

• To advocate for more accessible website design. I'll be, primarily, doing that here on this site through articles such as this one, in my podcast, and on social media over the coming months. I'll also be looking to talk on other podcasts, talk at conferences, and wherever else I can. If you are a conference organiser or podcaster please get in touch. It won't be the only topic that I'll talk about, as I'm also passionate about software testing and deployment. But, it will be one of the main topics, moving forward.
• To teach accessible website design. I'm still working out how I'll be doing this. However, knowing me, I'll likely be writing tutorials, and creating YouTube videos, courses, and books. Whichever seems the most appropriate. So, keep an eye out for them in the coming months.

I don't know where this journey will take me, or how much success I'll have. But, I hope that, with time, I can help make a positive, constructive difference (and that you come along with me on this journey).

Interested in learning about website accessibility?

If this post has in any way encouraged you to learn more about accessible website design, here is a handful of links to help you get started:

• Introduction to Web Accessibility by the Website Accessibility Initiative
• Practical Accessibility with Sara Soueidan
• Website Accessibility - Center for Accessibility Australia
• What is website accessibility?
• How to make content accessible - A practical guide to making your content accessible