I’ve always found the topic of accessiblity an interesting one, and I this book had so many great ideas that I ended up turning it into the basis of a lightning talk at work.

I really appreciated that each section started off with typical bad practices, then shows you how to change what you’ve done to make it fully inclusive. It also includes the reasons why what you were doing wasn’t the correct way to go about things, and why their suggested way is better.

“The best part is that designing inclusive interfaces, like designing robust data schemas, doesn’t have to be any harder or more complex than making exclusive or otherwise obsolete ones.”

I found the descriptions of inclusive design particulary enlightening. I’d always just assumed that it was for people with sight problems, but being inclusive is about way more than that. Inclusive means including everyone, regardless of ability (physical or mental). But it also means being inclusive of those on slower/more expensive internet connections (as developers we often forget that not everyone is as lucky as we are in terms of access).

“Everybody is a keyboard user when eating with their mouse hand”

I would highly recommend this book to anyone involved in building websites, even if you think you know everything there is to know about inclusive design, I’m sure that this book will still be able to teach you something. And if you’re a complete novice, the HTML examples given throughout are extremely helpful in making you understand what’s going on.