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Turn we can’t into yes and

1 minute read

A lot of times, I hear "no, we can't do that because of accessibility." This gives accessibility a bad name. And it gives everyone who works in the field a bad name. Like we don't want to have cool stuff.

Instead of no, I think "yes, and this is how we can also make it accessible."

Because making websites accessible isn't about eliminating cool stuff. It's about making sure everyone can enjoy and use the cool stuff we build.

A good example is animations. You can think, "wait, we can't add animations because some people get motion sickness." And stop there. And of course then you can blame accessibility for not having the cool animations. Instead, try to think "let's add animations and include a simple toggle to turn them off."

Or with colour schemes, rather than "we can't use these colours because of users who are colorblind," think "let's use these colours and make sure there's enough contrast and add patterns as indicators."

The key for me was shifting from seeing accessibility as a barrier to seeing it as a challenge that pushed me to be more creative. Most accessibility solutions actually end up making things better for everyone.

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I send out short emails like this every day to help you gain a fresh perspective on accessibility and understand it without the jargon, so you can build more robust products that everyone can use, including people with disabilities.

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