The best way to handle accessibility is to be proactive, make it part of your process. Adapting an accessible process means thinking of it at the beginning and every iteration along the way.
Adding accessibility to your process can seem like a daunting task, but making small changes and building on them will allow you to create an accessible process you can stick to. Make small adjustments like correctly ordered heading tags, add alt text to images, use good color contrast. Continually read about how you can make other changes. It takes more time in the beginning but it will become second nature. In the end, you will adopt an accessibility first process.
Personas are important to help you visualize who a website’s audience and stakeholders are, allowing you to keep them in mind as you create a website and go through iterations. What is important as well, is to include those with accessibility hurdles in your personas, this allows for continual thought about those people who need accessible websites in the context of the audience and stakeholders of a website. Making them not so much a separate group of people but someone within the target audience helps you think of them as a part of the audience and not a potential need down the line.
Name: Simon Smith
Age: 30
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Bio: Has been designing for the web for 10 years, from large company projects to small startups. Does front end development for smaller projects, focusing on making responsive designs. Is always looking online for new ways to create better websites. Focus is mostly on aesthetics but is interested in how to make interesting interactions with code.
Goals:
Name: Sally Jane
Age: 21
Location: Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
Bio: Sally just got out of college and is looking to start a full time development job. Having done countless school projects and experimented on their own they feel confident in the basics and comfortable with several languages.
Goals:
Name: Jim Peterson
Age: 55
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Bio: Having owned a company since his 20s times have changed so much in relation to getting and maintaining business. Though his company has had a website for several years, they brought in a marketing firm to help the create a better user experience. His nephew has autism and has him thinking about how to best cater to all audiences of his website. His older mother has difficulty reading websites.
Goals:
Name: Sarah Silver
Age: 39
Location: rural Iowa
Bio: Has been totally blind her entire life. Over the years as technology has advanced she has become frustrated that not everything is accessible to her. She would like to utilize the internet to find information, shop, and complete business as she lives on a farm with her husband.
Goals:
Name: Charlie Witmore
Age: 19
Location: San Diego, California
Bio: Having just graduated high school, he is searching for what to do with his life. Having played video games growing up his is interested in software development. Charlie lost his hearing at a young age and is an advocate for deaf and hard of hearing individuals.
Goals:
Name: Lilian Jones
Age: 78
Location: Billings, Montana
Bio: Lilian was a typist all her life until computers came into the workforce. Having been pushed out by them, she never wanted to adapt to using a computer, but quickly learned it was the best way to keep in contact with her family that had moved away from Montana.
Goals:
Name: Justin Potter
Age: 25
Location: Trenton, New Jersey
Bio: Justin has been working towards his bachelors degree over the last few years, looking to work at an office job. He hopes that whatever job he gets he can be an advocate for those with disabilities in the workforce.
Goals:
Name: Suzanne Rose
Age: 42
Location: New York, New York
Bio: Having recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, Suzanne is learning how to manage her pain. Spending years in scientific research, with a lot of computer work, she is learning on how to best work to stay comfortable She is speaking at a conference soon to discuss hurtles in the scientific community.
Goals: