Back in May of 2011 I wrote an article about a new book project, Universal Design for Web Accessibility. Since then my co-author, Whitney Quesenbery, and I have been plugging away, stealing writing time in between moves, job changes, elections, violent weather, and the many other disruptions that come with living a full life. We are now about 90% of the way to a final draft and are shooting for publication in the spring. (If you are interested, you can sign up to be notified when the book is published.)
The book has evolved quite a bit from our original thinking. We had planned to use the Principles of Universal Design to frame the discussion, but in the end we drew on many principles, guidelines, and approaches to design that can be used to support accessibility. We ended up creating a framework for incorporating accessibility into the design and development process, with the goal of creating accessible user experiences.
One aspect that did not change is our desire to include many voices in the book. Web accessibility is a shared concern, with many viewpoints to shed light on the topic. Each chapter features a profile, where people with deep expertise in areas that influence accessibility provide helpful context and guidance on specific topics. We also introduce a set of personas in the beginning of the book and include them throughout, providing a first-person viewpoint on different aspects of a design.
Now we are working on the final chapter of the book, The Future of Web Accessibility. This is where we set out to inspire readers to put the guidance from the previous chapters into practice, making accessibility an integral part of their process.
We need your help to provide that inspiration. Whitney and I can say plenty about where we see hope and what we believe needs to change. But we are only two voices. Many voices together are more powerful, more inspiring. We would like to close the book with the force of a multi-voice choir.
To that end we created a web form where we invite you to submit your thoughts about the future of web accessibility. We would like to know:
- What is your vision of a web for everyone, and how will we know we have reached it?
- What signs are there that we are moving towards that goal?
- What holds us (and the web) back from that vision?
We would also like to know a bit about you so we can represent your views accurately and provide proper credit. You can share your thoughts via the future of web accessibility interview form or using the commenting feature, below. You can also email me your thoughts at sarah.horton@gmail.com.
We will use the responses to compose a collective argument in favor of adopting web accessibility practices, and together take steps toward building a web for everyone.
Please, add your voice!
Sarah Horton 