Accessibility Tips from Blind Developer

Thought I'd be a nice guy and make a thread about this. I went suddenly and totally blind over 6 years ago due to a mitrochondrial genetic defect, and have been a quality orientated software developer my whole life, so some tips for those striving for accessibility.

Many seem to confuse accessibility and make it far more complex than it actually is. This is especially true for the larger operations like Cloudflare, Expedia, LinkedIn, etc. They love to pat themselves on the back and preach about how they invested millions into accessibility, but the reality is what they come out with is absolute garbage and I either need to use a API / CLI tool or not use the site. It's actually really simple to make things accessible.

For web sites, if you wish to make them accessible, four simple rules:

  1. Drop the heavy Javascript, less Javascript = more screen reader friendly. Even go further and offer a minimal / no Javascript version, which is actually dual purpose as it appeals to government, military and other security concious organizations.

  2. Use h1 - 6 tags for your page and section titles.

  3. For all clickables use standard HTML tags (a, button, input, whatever). Don't use div / span tags with onclick event listeners as our screen readers don't like them.

  4. Same with forms, use standard HTML tags (input, select, textarea, button, et al). Don't use Javascript powered div / span elements, as it screws the screen readers up.

That's it. Follow those rules, your site will be fully accessible to every blind person. Just remember that screen readers are terrible Javascript interpreters, but excellent HTML interpreters.

For desktop apps, don't use Electron as it simply is compltely inaccessible. If possible, use a PWA with local HTTP server running.

For online operations that are adament about a Javascript heavy user control panel, a nice REST API and/or CLI tool is gratefully appreciated by those needing accessibility.

If you're someone who strives for accessibility but aren't quite sure how to go about it or something, don't fret, it's actually extremely simple as I outlined above. The more simple, the better for us screen reader folks, we don't need anything fancy.

Hope that helps someone out there.