Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Article Idea:

Common Gotchas of Accessible Design

suggested by Kate Walser on 2007/05/29

When it comes to accessibility, we know the easy ones – provide alt tags, include table headings, offer skip nav links… What are the gotchas? Where do even the best designs fall apart? Wouldn’t you love to have a “cheat sheet” of the common CSS and design pitfalls that can break a Web site or application’s accessibility?

After spending the last 8 years on accessible design and providing feedback to make applications and sites more accessible, I’ve been keeping track. Of the things that break a screen reader. Of the things that are not accessible to a keyboard. Of the best intentions of a designer that went awry. If you’re interested, I can share them in hopes that the pains and pitfalls I’ve seen and helped teams work through will save you some pains in building that next site or application and making it accessible.