Imprint

© 2015 Smashing Magazine GmbH, Freiburg, Germany
ISBN (ePUB): 978-3-945749-22-7
Cover Design: Veerle Pieters
eBook Strategy and Editing: Vitaly Friedman
Technical Editing: Cosima Mielke
Planning and Quality Control: Vitaly Friedman, Iris Lješnjanin
Tools: Elja Friedman
Syntax Highlighting: Prism by Lea Verou
Idea & Concept: Smashing Magazine GmbH

About This Book

We design with viewports in mind, keep track of loading times, and hunt down even the smallest browser bugs — all to create the best possible user experience. But despite all these efforts to constantly improve our products, there’s still one aspect that, unfortunately, comes up short quite often: accessibility.

Have you ever tried to navigate your website using only your keyboard? Your mobile application with a screen reader? And do you consider your color choices with accessibility in mind? With the help of this eBook, you will gain a deeper understanding of common accessibility pitfalls and learn to circumvent them to create a better experience for everyone.

The first step towards making informed decisions about accessible design, though, is fully grasping how the underlying technology works. That’s why we’ll start off this eBook with a closer look at accessibility APIs. Based on that, our authors consider UX principles for accessibility and share best coding practices that guarantee a better and smoother interaction, no matter how a user interacts with your content. Finally, we cover strategies and tools to simulate how someone with visual impairments experiences your website, as well as key lessons from designing for older people. As you will see, with accessibility in mind, we can serve many more people than we already do. It’s about time to finally remove the existing barriers and build a more inclusive web — the effort is reasonable, and all our users will benefit from it.