Introduction

This documentation aims to provide a comprehensive overview of web accessibility, its importance, and how to implement it in your projects. It is designed for developers, designers, and anyone interested in making the web a more inclusive place. It covers the official standards, best practices, and resources.

What is accessibility?

Something is accessible when it can be reached, entered, or used.

When we talk about accessibility (often written a11y) on the web, we talk about making websites accessible to everyone, regardless of their disability or impairment. That includes people with vision or hearing deficiencies, cognitive or motor disabilities, but also people with a broken arm, a bad internet connection, or using their phone in bright sunlight, etc.

The standards for web accessibility are defined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which provides a set of success criteria to ensure that web content is accessible to most users.

Why is it important?

From an ethical standpoint, it is our responsibility to ensure that everyone can access the web. The web is a fundamental part of our lives, and it should be available to all. In many countries, there are laws and regulations that require websites to be accessible.

From a business standpoint, if your website is accessible, it means your company can draw in a larger and more diverse audience, your users have a nice and consistent experience, and your teams can make faster and better decisions.

Constraints are not limitations: they're the foundation of good design.

State of Accessibility

The state of accessibility is still far from ideal. Many websites do not meet the WCAG success criteria, and many users still face barriers when trying to access content online. You can find some statistics on the WebAIM Million project, which analyzes the accessibility of the top 1 million websites.

Yes, you read that right: the top 1 million websites. This means that even the most popular websites are in violation of the WCAG standards. This is a problem that we need to address.