Web Accessibility for Developers

Reviewed by Alexa Summers, Assistant Professor, Johnson County Community College on 5/6/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The index for this book is very well laid out and named accordingly. The text covers a great deal of information and all sections are cohesive.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The book follows along with the most updated information for HTML5 from the WCAG and WAI-ARIA. The text is error-free and unbiased.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

All the exercises are stored in a GitHub repo, which is an excellent way to access and download everything. This also makes it easy to update should the need arise. Web development will continue evolving, but the need for accessible web pages will not go away, and all of the information will remain relevant even if using a content management system rather than hard coding an entire website, as most CMS software will allow for the addition of code.

Clarity rating: 5

Explanations are given for all acronyms and external sources are used to provide additional information. The text goes into detail on accessing the repo, which is excellent as people might not have experience with this. It also covers using the desktop client for GitHub, in addition to the Linux command line.

Consistency rating: 5

All technology is utilized correctly and even provides benefit for both the students and the teacher. This text goes into submitting assignments to GitHub for easy grading by a professor.

Modularity rating: 4

It might be a little difficult to break up because all of the topics flow so well together, that as a teacher, we might want more of a stopping point rather than just halting in the middle of a topic. However, this is a small price to pay and a few of the sections have multiple activities, so a teacher could always stop between activities if possible.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Everything flows well and is in order of the WCAG (starting with basic, and then going to intermediate and advance).

Interface rating: 4

The book navigation for the online version (the arrows along the bottom) are questionable. I originally thought the only way to navigate was with the content menu. The white text blends in with the background in one's peripherals, and the bottom of the screen is not the first place I would go to look for page navigation. Perhaps, there should be another navigational item on the upper right side, a bit closer to the text, with more contrast.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Text has no grammatical errors and is well-written.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Text is not offensive and provides information on inclusivity and equity.

Comments

I really appreciate the use of outside sources this book has. Providing links to videos helps pull in opinions and perspectives from those with disabilities, which enriches the content greatly. In addition, the utilization of GitHub is a nice feature for both students and teachers, as it is easy to use, easy to grade, and incorporates the use of version control into our courses. Overall, I am very pleased with this resource.

Reviewed by David Wang, Assistant Professor, James Madison University on 1/10/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Web Accessibility for Developers provides important context for students learning user experience design to better understand the value of creating accessible content. It also provides a technical framework to help simulate a user’s experience and test a developer’s code for accessibility based on standard guidelines.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The various methods described include variations for the reader to choose their own path with coding for technical development. The showcase website provide a range of implementations, which allows student to see and test “bad” vs. “good” examples.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The content is well written, and it provides a more approachable way to learn the industry standards for web accessibility. The testing materials reinforce guidelines to build a foundation for future iterations and experimentation. Additional references are included throughout with suggested readings, external links, and parenthetical notation to indicate content updates.

Clarity rating: 5

As a textbook for a technical topic, the writing style consistently emphasizes important titles, phrases, and acronyms while blending in common language that helps articulate obtuse, niche lingo.

Consistency rating: 5

Each unit provides a structured pattern for learning with an easy to read line length that incorporates reasonable breakpoints that allow you to scan each page for quick reference.

Modularity rating: 4

Information is well organized with clearly marked objectives, activities, and summaries. Overall, the book is easily divided for instruction; the self-test reviews encourage learning and provide ready-made material for assessment.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Each topic is well presented, and the progression of the book is effective for comprehensive learning. The individual titles for the learning units 4-6 on Interactive WAI-ARIA could be differentiated beyond basic, intermediate, and advanced categories to include more contextual information (i.e. assistive technologies, widgets, etc.).

Interface rating: 4

The online version of the book is easy to use and preferred for instruction. It would be nice to incorporate interface features that allows for navigation / table of contents to be fixed with an option to minimize the site header information. The accompanying digital PDF version is bookmarked and works well enough for offline use or for sharing as a downloadable reference.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The book appears to be well edited and it has minimal grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The numerous examples provided in "Types of Disabilities and Barriers" help web developers quickly see how user experiences could be more inclusive. The succeeding chapters provide reasonable options for incremental improvements to improve interactive experiences.

Comments

Overall, Web Accessibility for Developers is an excellent technical resource and it provides a great example as an open access textbook.

Reviewed by Ali Raza, Graduate Student, CU Boulder on 7/1/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This book provides a great introduction to the issues relevant to the accessibility with the help of links to video examples. It is a good resource for any beginner in the accessibility area for getting familiarity with the field challenges. It covers most of the issues on tackling challenges to web accessibility by utilizing ARIA in different modules. However, authors should provide some form of the glossary to the readers.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The content of the book is up-to-date with the current standards of the accessible web technology and provides great access to tools checking the accessibility in the websites.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

I believe this is a necessary shelf book for any web developer and it is easy to pick up the understanding of the textbook. It is mandatory for authors to check for the updates in the web accessibility standard for future editions and for keeping the textbook in demand.

Clarity rating: 5

The authors mentioned at the start of the book about the background knowledge required in order to understand the text. Whereas they also did a good job of providing enough guidance on doing assignments for each particular topic.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent in what it supposed to offer and web developers can definitely benefit from it.

Modularity rating: 5

The textbook is very modular because it is divided into three sections for beginners, intermediate, and advance implementation of the web accessibility items. Instructors can provide it in this way to the class or can further subdivide it without any complexities.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The book is definitely organized in a lucid way, making it is easy for any web developer to understand and implement the ARIA standard into the web. But authors should provide a table of content at the start of the book for just providing an overall glimpse.

Interface rating: 5

There aren’t any challenges with the interface of the book, it is complete in all the aspects; images, links working, navigation, etc.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

There are minor grammatical errors like duplication of the same word, which should be removed from the book in its next edition.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I believe this book is helping to promote equity and take into account all the cultures relevant to web users. From the content side of the book, there are no issues relevant to culture offensiveness.