I did not attend as many of the web accessibility panels at the South by Southwest conference as I had thought I might. I did make it to the one I was most interested in: Deafness and the User Experience.
The session had originally been titled "Aging, Cognition, and Deafness: The Quirky Corners of Web Accessibility." To be honest, when I saw that title, I had thought "why are they using the word quirky?" I felt like it reinforced the misconception that web accessibility issues are primarily about people with visual impairments. As it happens, the presenters on Aging and Cognition were caught in a schedule conflict between the presentation and the Web Standards Project meeting. Lisa Herrod decided to go ahead and do her part of the presentation, about web accessibility issues for people who are hard of hearing or deaf, whether they identify as culturally Deaf or not. She had previously written an article published on A List Apart on the topic, and the title of her article became the title of the panel.
I did learn a lot from the session, but consider some of her tips for making web content more accessible to people in these groups (from the article, which is a good outline of what she discussed in the session):
- Use headings and subheadings.
- Make one point per paragraph.
- Use bulleted lists.
- Include a glossary for specialized vocabulary, e.g., medical or legal terminology, and provide definitions in simpler language.
Basically, the session reinforced my feeling that most web accessibility best practices are anything BUT quirky, regardless of whose needs you're trying to meet. These tips would help anyone who is trying to get information from your website or blog. I'm not saying this to downplay what Ms. Herrod presented (and indeed there are some issues specific to the deaf, hard of hearing, and Deaf populations). I just found it inspiring, though, to consider how much you achieve when you do the basic work of writing well and coding well.
I would still love to attend this presentation in its originally conceived form, but big thanks to Ms. Herrod for the inspiration and a good session.
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