UX book club is on Thursday: come along and talk about the important subject of accessibility

[fstorr]

"The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."—Tim Berners-Lee.

Hi, all

This month's book club is on Thursday, and we're talking about the book A Web For Everyone by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery. The book is an excellent guide to accessibility, what it entails and how to design and build for it. If you think accessibility is just screen readers for blind users, you'll discover that it really isn't. Disabilities also cover things like not being able to use a mouse (something the many carpel tunnel syndrome sufferers in our industry know about), color blindness, deafness, dyslexia, broken bones, epilepsy, and much much more. We have a responsibility—both moral and legal—to make sure the sites, apps, and tools that we design and build work for our users.

We're going to talking with one of the book's authors, Whitney Quesenbery, about accessibility, our responsibilities to our users, legal requirements for "public" and "private" (e.g. intranets and other tools employees have to use) web content, and how to design and build for universal access.

Where to get the book

The publisher's site: http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/a-web-for-everyone/ The discount code UXBCPDXWQ will get you 30% off the paperback and/or the DRM-free e-book off until 27th November.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Web-Everyone-Designing-Accessible-Experiences/dp/1933820977/

Where and when

Date: Thursday 13th November, at 6PM (note: you won't be able to get into the building after 7PM)

Where: Mozilla's offices in The Pearl

Calagator: http://calagator.org/events/1250467090

If you, or any of your colleagues who want to come along, haven't finished the book, then please still do come along. Accessibility is a really important topic. You don't want to be the next Target (who were fined $6m and $3,738,864.96 in costs), Verizon (who were fined $20m for disability discrimination), or be like the BBC who broadcast an animation that caused viewers to have epileptic seizures whilst watching TV.

Hope to see you on Thursday.

Francis