This one time we built an application. The suits argued about colors. They picked something 'pretty'. Then we had to build a second app for accessibility.
Let's not do that. Let's build from the ground up for accessibility.
If you don't know what it means, congrats. You're probably not:
- colorblind or
- blind/low vision or
- don't have a cognitive impairment or
- don't have motor and/or situational impairment or
- don't have friends or family that have usability issues
For many other users, applications and websites are difficult to use because the colors don't have enough contrast, the navigation is unusable, the interface can't be navigated with a keyboard or the application doesn't support screen readers.
Multiple standards exist to make digital services available to people with disabilities. As usual...there's an XKCD for that.
508 - says digital services maintained by the federal government shall be accessible
ADA - says digital services maintained by the businesses, state & local governments, and nonprofit orgs make accomodations for the disabled public
WCAG - a bunch of smart people got together and said "we know people need to access stuff, but no-one has said how to develop it. Let's roll"
Conveniently, WCAG meets all the requirements of ADA & 508, so that's what we'll focus on...that's on which we will focus. Whatever.