This final #GAAD post is a bit of a mashup.

I want to debunk things I was confused about when I first started learning about #accessibility, esp. ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), and give you some tips and everyday references.

Day 5 is #a11y learning 📚 -> Many years ago, the web started becoming more "dynamic", i.e. we started adding a bunch of JavaScript to do fancy things.

Before HTML5, we only had <div> and <span>, so these fancy things were basically invisible to assistive technology.

ARIA was created created to solve this.

Happy global accessibility awareness day! #GAAD

I've saved the trump card of all #accessibility testing techniques for today. Did you guess it?

Learning how to use a screen reader! 🗣-> It's hard to learn something, without seeing someone else do it first. 👀

Marc works at a university and is a Mac user. He uses the built-in screen reader (VoiceOver) to control his computer, including browsing the web.

Watch this to see how he does it 😁youtube.com/watch?v=dEbl5j…

Day 3 of 5! Tomorrow, there will be #GAAD events around the globe.

In Australia, tune-in to @a11ybytes Thu 21 May, 4pm AEST; 12 talks, 10 minutes each, all about #inclusion and #accessibility - this event changed my life.

Today, we're about accessibility checking tools 🔍 -> So, we've talked about keyboard, and colour and contrast.

Other common #a11y mistakes:
❌ images without alt-text
❌ unlabelled <input>s
❌ icon-only links and buttons, with no labels
❌ and more...

Can all be found in one go with an accessibility analyser

#GAAD morning, it's Day 2!

How'd everyone go with keyboard #a11y yesterday?

You may have found it slow to browse a site with just the keyboard. Yes, there is a learning curve, also, many users have software that gives them shortcuts!

Today is about colour and contrast 🖍 -> In Australia, 8% of men, and 0.4% of women have some degree of colourblindness.

We cannot use only colour to provide meaning, or risk excluding nearly 1-2 in every 20 people from the web.

Did you know that 70% of the web is inaccessible folks with low vision?

This Thursday is #GAAD - Global Accessibility Awareness Day.

I'll be tweeting about 5 #a11y techniques I use everyday to ensure I don't exclude people on the web.

Let's start with unplugging your mouse -> There are many keyboard-only users out there. People who use a screen reader fall in this category. These users generally have low-vision or blindness (but not necessarily).

Also, people with motor disabilities, or injuries, that temporarily or permanently cannot use a mouse.