I want to discuss accessibility because it is the most important thing for making websites. Other A List Apart articles give you innovation and insight. This article will give you homework. These are just my personal views, but they’re pretty good. I want to start off with a couple of statements, and you will agree: Designers are good people. I have never heard a designer say, “I don’t care if somebody can’t read this text”, “Not my fault if somebody can’t use this device”, or “Who cares if this is confusing?” Some designs exclude people. You have seen people unable to read the text on a website or app that somebody designed. You’ve seen people unable to use a physical device that somebody has designed. You’ve seen people utterly bamboozled while trying to use a service that somebody designed. So what? The first question is, “Is this life-or-death stuff?” The answer is, “Yes.” In my favorite essay, This Is All There Is, Aral Balkan makes the point that pretty much everything that we design can affect life events and death events. Aral gives the example of how even a straightforward bus timetable app can affect life and death events, if we design it badly: somebody might miss a life event, such as their daughter’s fifth birthday party; or somebody might miss a death event, such as the chance to say goodbye to a dying grandmother. The next—and frustrating—question is, “Why do some designs still exclude people?” After all, we know that: not everybody can see perfectly; not everybody can hear perfectly; not everybody thinks the same way; and not everybody moves the same way. I think the answer is that there’s too much to recall. Consider, if you will, the wide variety of topics that A List Apart articles cover. Designers are expected to remember all of that guidance, plus all of the accessibility guidance, plus so much more. It is too much. Recognizing accessibility issues while designing I’d like to point toward one possible solution, starting from Jakob

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