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Accessibility (WCAG / a11y)

WCAG, a11y

What it is

Accessibility is the work of making a page usable by people who navigate with a keyboard, a screen reader, a magnifier or a voice, and by anyone whose situation temporarily resembles theirs — an arm in a sling, a bright screen, a noisy train. WCAG is the published standard those guarantees are measured against. “a11y” is the same word with its middle letters replaced by their count.

Why it matters

The web is how people apply for work, pay tax and see a doctor, so an inaccessible page is not a small defect — it excludes people from things they have no other route to. It is also enforceable: accessibility is a legal requirement in the public sector across most of Europe and in a growing number of countries for private services. Practically, the biggest wins come from the cheapest habits, which is why this track sits next to HTML and CSS rather than in a separate discipline. You cannot bolt accessibility on at the end; you write it as you go or you rewrite.

In this track

  1. Semantics and ARIA (02-frontend/11-accessibility-wcag-a11y/01-semantics-and-aria) — giving every control a name, a role and a state that assistive technology can announce.
  2. Keyboard and focus (02-frontend/11-accessibility-wcag-a11y/02-keyboard-and-focus) — making every action reachable and visible without a mouse.

Prerequisites

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