Amanda Unvarnished

> Must know accessibility tips for developers
> 1. Learn to use a screen reader

No. This is never the first step. The first step is understanding the spectrum of needs that your code works with. Screen readers are only an itsy bitsy tiny part of the overall experience. And you don’t need to use them at all to write good code for 90+% of all situations.

#accessibility #a11y

—@yatil

If you use good practices and clear semantic HTML, screen reader users will be fine. It might not be great, and there might be obstacles. And you should try to improve, always.

But remember, screen readers are made to work with the worst the web has to offer, they will often work around issues that other assistive tech can/does not work around. Or reveal information oblivious for other tech.

—@yatil

@yatil Oof. That step one advice scares me.

This is how we get devs building stuff that works in VO on macOS only because of a bug or proprietary quirk. Or devs that put `tabindex` on every table cell because they have no idea how users actually surf.

Glad you are calling that out.

—@aardrian

@aardrian There are a lot of people who equate accessibility = make it work somehow in screen readers. I think that is where the over-reliance on ARIA comes from. And devs are legit scared and don’t understand screen readers fully which makes things worse, not better.

—@yatil

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