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Keep Designing for Easy Interaction

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Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery’s article last week includes a lot of accessibility concepts that we thought people might want to dig into a little deeper, so we assembled a few key resources that may be of interest.

Knowledge of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is important for any developer who needs to make complex or dynamic content accessible. If you aren’t familiar with ARIA, it is time. For ARIA you will get exposure in Sarah and Whitney’s book A Web for Everyone: Designing Accessible User Experiences, but you can also check out the WAI-ARIA overview, the official Authoring Practices document, or head right for the ARIA spec.

The W3C WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) working group also produces Techniques for WCAG 2.0 which has a few ARIA techniques, but a number of additional ARIA techniques are included in the editor’s draft and are expected to be finalized in March.

In addition to the ARIA resources there are several useful accessibility-focused blogs that may be of interest, including blogs from individuals and leading accessibility organizations:

If you’re looking for more book-length offerings, both Universal Design for Web Applications and Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Through Design also cover the nexus of usability and accessibility and are worthwhile reads. If you haven’t picked up a copy of A Web for Everyone yet, use the code AWFEALA to save 20 percent when you buy the book from Rosenfeld Media.

11 Reader Comments

  2. @Michelangelo

    ARIA is brilliant but it is surprising how often people fail to mention that it only benefits screen reader users.

    It primarily benefits screen readers (and other AT), but also has important benefits for any keyboard users as the ARIA design patterns specify standardized keyboard interaction for custom controls.

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