Related Nanodegree Program
Front End Web Developer
Earn a Nanodegree program certificate to accelerate your career.
Learn moreWeb Accessibility
Free Course
Developing with Empathy
Estimated time
Approx. 2 Weeks
Skill level
Advanced
Prerequisites
See prerequisites in detail
In collaboration with
About this course
In this course you’ll get hands-on experience making web applications accessible. You’ll understand when and why users need accessibility. Then you’ll dive into the "how": making a page work properly with screen readers, and managing input focus (e.g. the highlight you see when tabbing through a form.) You’ll understand what "semantics" and "semantic markup" mean for web pages and add ARIA markup to enable navigating the interface with a range of assistive devices. Finally, you’ll learn styling techniques that help users with partial vision navigate your pages easily and reliably.
This course is also featured in our Full-Stack Web Developer Nanodegree program.
What you will learn
Overview
- Learn why accessibility matters, and who it affects.
- Get a first look at the web accessibility guidelines (WAI – Web Accessibility Initiative).
- Understand “POUR” means for accessibility, and locate checklists to help make your own sites accessible.
Focus
- Learn how to make a page usable for anyone navigating with the keyboard.
- An exploration of focusable elements.
- Learn how to manage focus in forms, in custom components, pop-ups, and off-screen content.
Semantics Basics
- Make a page work for people who are unable to use a standard user interface.
- Use a screen reader to try out ordinary form elements and add markup to make them work even better.
- Understand the accessibility tree the browser constructs from the DOM.
Semantics Extras
- Dive deeper into the screen-reader experience to add hyper-fast navigation.
- Learn how to arrange headings and label links so screen reader users can fly through your pages!
- Call out “landmarks” into your page to speed up navigation even more.
Semantics - ARIA
- Move beyond the native elements of HTML into building custom controls and interactions.
- Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA).
- Learn how to add attributes to your custom interactions to make them as accessible as native elements.
Style
- Learn the third pillar of Accessibility (after Focus and Semantics): Styling.
- Highlight the focus, indicate ARIA states, zoomed in or out, and support limited color or contrast vision.
- Audit your page with the Chrome Accessibility Tools and correct any styling issues that pop up.
Prerequisites and requirements
Students should know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
See the Technology Requirements for using Udacity.
Why take this course?
Not every user approaches their applications with the same abilities. Whether it’s age, vision concerns, limited hearing, a broken arm, or other limitations, everybody deserves access to their apps. This course dives into the why and how of making web applications accessible. As a bonus, accessible sites also tend to be more usable for everybody!
Learn with the best.
Alice Boxhall
Instructor
Rob Dodson
Instructor
Michael Wales
Instructor