My adventure with web accessibility
A front-end developer’s journey into the world of web a11y.
The beginning
Over two years ago I visited the Invisible Exhibition in Warsaw. It’s very unique; visitors are guided through several exhibitions in total darkness, to really experience life as a blind person. Afterwards, our guide, a man with a visual impairment, talked about the practical aspects that help the visually impaired operate in different situations, like signing documents, playing tennis etc, and he showed us how he uses the web.
This really sparked my interest as a front-end developer, and I started reading more about how people with disabilities use the web. I found an article written by Florian Beijers, which describes how blind developers code. I was looking for more and more information when I realized that there are a lot of differently-abled people who access web content in different ways. I was impressed and touched that the web can be such an accessible place for all.
Around this time, my company Snowdog organized a meetup in Poznań to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), which I didn’t yet know existed! Kuba, our CEO, talked about a11y and invited Henryk, who has low vision, to share his experience. I had so many questions for Henryk — how do you use a smartphone? How do you buy things online? What assistive technologies do you use? How should the web be built to be more accessible? This is when my journey really started.
