Web Accessibility

Overview

In this course you’ll get hands-on experience making web applications accessible. You’ll understand when and why users need accessibility. Then you’ll dive into the "how": making a page work properly with screen readers, and managing input focus (e.g. the highlight you see when tabbing through a form.) You’ll understand what "semantics" and "semantic markup" mean for web pages and add ARIA markup to enable navigating the interface with a range of assistive devices. Finally, you’ll learn styling techniques that help users with partial vision navigate your pages easily and reliably.

This course is also featured in our Full-Stack Web Developer Nanodegree program.

Syllabus

Overview

Learn why accessibility matters, and who it affects.,Get a first look at the web accessibility guidelines (WAI – Web Accessibility Initiative).,Understand “POUR” means for accessibility, and locate checklists to help make your own sites accessible.

Focus

Learn how to make a page usable for anyone navigating with the keyboard.,An exploration of focusable elements.,Learn how to manage focus in forms, in custom components, pop-ups, and off-screen content.

Semantics Basics

Make a page work for people who are unable to use a standard user interface.,Use a screen reader to try out ordinary form elements and add markup to make them work even better.,Understand the accessibility tree the browser constructs from the DOM.

Semantics Extras

Dive deeper into the screen-reader experience to add hyper-fast navigation.,Learn how to arrange headings and label links so screen reader users can fly through your pages!,Call out “landmarks” into your page to speed up navigation even more.

Semantics - ARIA

Move beyond the native elements of HTML into building custom controls and interactions.,Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA).,Learn how to add attributes to your custom interactions to make them as accessible as native elements.

Style

Learn the third pillar of Accessibility (after Focus and Semantics): Styling.,Highlight the focus, indicate ARIA states, zoomed in or out, and support limited color or contrast vision.,Audit your page with the Chrome Accessibility Tools and correct any styling issues that pop up.