What would you want to see or find in a book about accessibility?

Making absolutely no promises at all but if I were to start writing a book on accessibility what would you want to see or find in it?
Hereā€™s a few thoughts to get you thinking;

  • Understanding the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • Details on the legal requirements for UK, Europe and US
  • Practical accessibility testing (web / mobile)
  • Explain and how to conduct Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)

The more information you give the better I could look to provide help, whether that be in a book or an article on my website. Thanks for reading.

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Just recently I became aware of that my light dyslexia limits my ability to use command lines.
I have often typos and its correction slows me down. Even the completion suggestions does not help, when I have a typo in the written letters.

I hope for more functions like this tool offers:

Like having a (semi-) auto-correction on command lines.
Semi in the sense that I still have to confirm the choice. But at all getting alternatives shown for typos.

Maybe you can write something in that direction?
Or also similar, less as (explicit) disability perceived, conditions.

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@adystokes, if you would need a technical reviewer, a helping hand or anything with mobile applications, then feel free to ping me. Would be happy to help :call_me_hand:

Either way, mobile applications. Thereā€™s definitely way not enough information on how to test mobile apps, how to include accessibility testing in test flow, CI/CD flow and so on.

Prompt for anyone interested: Conducting Mobile Accessibility Research with Screen-Reader Users

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Alas, I see no way this delightful utility could ever be on my work computer.

I can dreamā€¦

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Iā€™d be also curious to know to what degree can accessibility testing be automated when it should be automated, and when we shouldnā€™t try to automate certain aspects of accessibility testing.

How to sell it to management as a ā€œvaluable featureā€ and how to talk about accessibility when it comes to things like ESG (Environmental and Social Governance) statements.

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You can find a lot of resources related to theory (WCAG, legal requirements) but finding good practical examples is really hard. Most of the training resources are entry-level: headings, buttons, contrasts, and keyboard navigation ā€¦ ok but letā€™s speak about all the other really tricky cases.
How to do a full manual report (audit style)
How to manage accessibility in an Agile environment.
How to automate and reasonably set up no-regression testing.

I really would read about these things

Sorry for the delayed reply. Iā€™m curious about a couple of things. Why would you call a book a ā€˜delightful utilityā€™? And why wouldnā€™t it work on our computer? Thanks

Hi folks, many thanks to those who have responded. Iā€™ve taken onboard your feedback and have these ideas. Iā€™d love some thoughts and feedback on what you think of the potential content and title.

Working Title:

Digital Accessibility - A Testerā€™s Guide

Chapter ideas / Contents

  • Introduction - What the guide is (testing described in simple terms), how to use this book (jump to the information you need easily) and who I am (background, experience etc.)
  • Lived Experience - caveat that as much as I can help people understand accessibility and testing I am not a replacement for having systems tested by the people who are native screen reader users, neurodiverse etc.
  • What is Digital Accessibility?
  • What are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
  • Testing the Guidelines - step by step for each WCAG one with test case (couple of formats, given, when, then - as a, I want, so that maybe other(s)
  • Accessibility Audits - What they are and how to do them
  • Making it part of your daily testing - keyboard, screen reader sessions. Use this to explain building up screen reader use
  • Automating Accessibility
  • Assumptions - common misconceptions
  • Arguments - how to make the case for accessibility
  • Accessible Presentations
  • Language Matters

I was referring to the command line utility referenced by @sebastian_solidwork - ā€œThe F*ckā€. It would certainly be helpful for those with issues correctly typing (or those who always have to google the commands they need), but with a name like that I canā€™t see it getting past my employerā€™s filters. If the security team didnā€™t kill the idea, the HR team would.

It would be a fun addition to a book about accessibility, though.

Thanks for the clarification. Iā€™ve added a task to look into it properly but a quick check has thrown up possible starting places. Itā€™s an interesting avenue I hadnā€™t thought of so thank you.

  1. Fish Shell: is a user-friendly shell for Unix-like operating systems that features extensive auto-completion capabilities. It provides intelligent suggestions based on command history, installed packages, and user-defined functions. Fish Shell is known for its excellent auto-suggestion feature.
  2. Oh My Zsh: is a popular open-source framework for managing Zsh configurations. It comes with a variety of plugins and themes, including a powerful auto-completion system.
  3. FZF: (Fuzzy Finder) is a command-line fuzzy finder that enables fast and efficient searching through file systems, command history, and more. It offers auto-completion functionality by providing suggestions based on partial matches and fuzzy search algorithms.
  4. ShellCheck: is a static analysis tool for shell scripts that detects common errors, issues, and potential bugs. It helps improve the quality and accessibility of shell scripts by providing suggestions for improvements.
  5. A11y: (Accessibility) is a command-line tool that checks web pages for accessibility issues. It analyses HTML and CSS code, providing suggestions for improving accessibility compliance.
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Depends on what that means.

It could be

  • a book for people with disabilities on resources to help them day-to-day
  • a book for people to learn about disabilities, to help them understand and empathise with the world around them
  • a book for reference on legal requirements to reduce their risk as a business from court cases and fines
  • a book on the statistical significance of disabilities in communities to help best allocate resources to help as many people as possible within a given budget
  • a book to aid testers in thinking about the needs of people with disabilities to help them build mental models to better serve them, and call out poor design
  • a book on the technologies that people with disabilities use that interface with your product, e.g. screen readers, and how to implement and test their interface with your product
  • a book to help testers advocate for accessibility in companies that have no desire to pay for it
  • a book on how to do user testing with people with disabilities, how to source people, what provisions to make and what equipment to have

For me Iā€™d want to know a big mix of everything maybe starting with getting buy-in, especially saleable points like untapped market share, monetary risk, and anything else that can light a fire under management in the service of a better world, moving on to the best utility per unit cost (in a non-specific, poetic sense) set of approaches to meet requirements and make a product more accessible, then specific examples of popular tech I can get hold of for testing purposes, and resources on further learning. Easy and cheap wins are always welcome, easy to sell and useful to implement.

Essentially Iā€™d want to get budget and then not squander it. Any one of these books would be useful in that regard.

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My working title and chapter ideas are outlined in the link below. Does this help Chris?

I feel like a lot of what you mentioned is covered but at the heart it is a testers guide rather than an enterprise model. The Agile Accessibility Handbook covers a lot of that and is now available for free after registration with Deque Agile Accessibility Handbook

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