Thread by @feather

Accessibility was never a "nice to have" thing. It has always been a "must have" but people/orgs deprioritized it. Made it a thing for phase 2. A thing they can add later. As we go through this public health crisis, people are realizing it is an absolute MUST HAVE for all things.

Amidst all the uncertainty and increased focus on public health, people will be asked to make all materials accessible. That will include web sites that are providing critical info about disease, its spread, and prevention measures. It will include social media posts...

It will include emails. It will include resources on effective remote working. It will include educational resources and learning materials as we turn towards a "remote first" and/or "asynchronous first" initiative rather than in person/live first proposition.

People will push back and say things like "But every second counts. We have to get this information out to people right away. We don't have time to make it accessible."

You're right. Every second counts. They count for people with disabilities too, and they might even count more

For example, lets say you create a thing, and screenshot it and send it out via twitter. It's a big important announcement about where not to go because danger.

We MUST not treat people with disabilities like second class citizens. They need the info too, and they need it now.

It is simply not acceptable in a public health crisis (or any other crisis for that matter) to provide information or details to people with disabilities later than people without.

Public safety includes all members of the public.

Public organization's web sites are getting crushed under the weight of people looking online for details/info. They're over capacity and can't handle the load. Because their performance is stuck in 2008.

Every org needs to have a crisis mode web site that is highly performant and accessible. Of course, we could just make sure that every web site is highly performant and accessible by default.

But a switch to "crisis mode" would be a huge help in so many ways. Like, no fluff/ads.

There are a lot of lessons this will teach us all.

Back to my original point: we cannot have people with disabilities living in a world where their health is in MORE danger than everyone else's because they didn't have access to the same information.

They can't be "lesser than"

This sucks for everyone, I know. Let's make it not suck even more for people with disabilities.

#accessibility #a11y #inclusion #LesserThan