Accessibility will bring us closer together

“The one argument for accessibility that doesn’t get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people’s lives. How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people’s lives just by doing our job a little better?”  ― Steve Krug

Up until now, I have put forward logical, legal, and ethical reasons for following accessibility guidelines when developing websites, but in this blog, I want to present a more humanitarian argument.

Connection is central to our human experience and underpins our identity. As current thought leaders, such as Brené Brown report, fostering connection creates a sense of belonging, which is essential to our wellbeing.

Yet, as the experts point out, we are currently experiencing a ‘crisis of disconnection’. These factions are caused by political and ideological differences.

In my opinion, disconnection is further exacerbated by current digital practices. You may not realise it, but current web practices divide us into two main factions: those that can access websites and those that can’t. Why is this? Well, one main reason is that most websites do not abide by W3 accessibility guidelines and therefore, the vision impaired is unable to access them.

There is no doubt that overcoming this barrier is difficult. Creating accessible websites is time-consuming and requires a more specialised skill-set, but ultimately, it is the right way.

As Neil Milliken, an accessibility expert, once said, ‘we should celebrate neurodiversity’; life is more interesting when we acknowledge our differences. Adopting accessibility not only gives us the greatest opportunity to observe neurodiversity, but it will also improve the lives of the vision-impaired – and it just may act as one more step towards building a more connected and compassionate society.

At Edu Net Solutions we pride ourselves on developing inclusive websites. For more information about our services, contact us today.

Important News!

In the coming weeks we’ll be making important announcements that will confirm Edu Net Solutions as the most progressive web development company not only in South Australia but Australia wide.

Stay tuned!