It looks like I'll be spending the best part of this year designing some pretty tricky tables. There will be lots of columns and lots of rows. More data that I can shake a stick at. And making all of it accessible is really important too.
Anyway, I'm expecting lots of learning. Lots of user research. And plenty of digging into resources that are already out there and available, like this quick video explainer from GOV.UK on how screen readers use headings.
You may already know about WAVE, which is one of many free tools that helps you check the accessibility of a website or single web page.
WAVE® is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content.
The second clause in that last sentence is some way from being written in clear language, but it is important.
WAVE is fantastic at automatically picking up errors in your website. But you – dear human – must be the one to look for and identify accessibility issues more generally, and especially with your content.
Watch the 11-minute explainer video to get a good introduction to WAVE. Then head to the home page, enter a web address and poke around to see how it works hands on.
I can recommend this short talk on the writing process by Scott Kubie, which sets out four stages for each 'assignment'.
It's all great, but I want to particularly second the idea of creating an outline before you get started. That could be a few bullet points, draft headings or even a sentence that describes what will go where.
Things might change when you get into the meat of things, but that's okay. Everything changes. Change is good. Life is change.
Scott has a personal website absolutely full of content-related resources that you should also visit and explore.
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