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Learning how to swim

2 minutes read

Confession time.

I can't swim.

I'm 39 years old and I can't swim. I almost drowned twice in my life time. First time, I was maybe 14-15. Lucky my neighbour was there and thanks to him, I'm still here today. The second time, I was in high school, on a class trip to a lake. It was a salt-water lake and people said just stay still and you'll float because of the salt. I proved them wrong.

I thought about learning how to swim many times since. I watched videos on YouTube, I read guides, I even stretched on a chair and simulated the movement of my hands and feet.

Here's the thing though. All the reading, the coaching, the tutorials, none of those will teach me how to swim. The only way to learn to swim is to get wet.

Just like the only way to be accessible is to roll up your sleeves and do the work.

You can read the WCAG, attend every workshop and follow all the tutorials. Until you dive into your process and start making the right changes, your website won't become more accessible. You need to do the work.

Add alt text to your images. Makes sure your text has proper colour contrast. Take care your forms can be used with just a keyboard.

If you want to learn how to swim, you need to get in the water. If you want an accessible website, you need to dig in to it.

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