Did you know that the same organization which wrote the standard for HTML itself also defined what it means to make a website accessible? The W3C is the source of truth for digital accessibility and has a broad range of resources. Their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are the international standard to which every digital product should adhere.

Microsoft is a true pioneer for accessibility and inclusion, so it’s no surprise their resource hub is one of the best introductions to the wide and diverse spectrums of disabilities and assistive technologies.

TPG’s timeline is especially helpful for understanding the legal requirements (in the U.S.) for accessibility. Even for folks outside the U.S., understanding the history of the international standard, WCAG, is a must.

Every organization is at a different spot on their accessibility journey. The ultimate key to success is to foster an inclusive mindset in everyone because it takes everyone. As you read Shopify’s accessibility story, ask yourself what you can do to affect lasting change in your team and organization.

Now let’s get tactical. WebAIM has plenty of great resources and this is one which can take any organization from ‘What’s accessibility?’ to ‘We’re all accessibility experts!’

Many of the easiest and most effective accessibility best practices can be applied before a single line of code is written. You’re probably already familiar with some of these because, as you’ll soon discover, great accessibility leads to great experiences for all users.

Accessibility is very context dependent, meaning ‘it depends’ is a common response to many questions. This is a great resource for those nuanced scenarios when you need an answer to your specific problem.

And now, to round out your growing toolkit, an actual toolkit! IBM released their internal accessibility documentation to the world and the world is better for it. This is the most comprehensive guide to every accessibility requirement and best practice you’ll ever find.

There are endless accessibility resources out there for web developers, but if there’s a place every web dev should start, it’s with the accessibility tree. It’s the glue that holds everything together and understanding how assistive technologies utilize it is critical to building accessible websites, no matter the stack.

Last but certainly not least, iOS accessibility. This is a great guide for every developer since it covers everything from using the native screen reader, VoiceOver, to implementing accessible checkboxes.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this Deep Dive. As I like to say to the folks I train, this is really the first day of the rest of your (accessibility) life. Everyone deserves access to the same delightful experiences, but that can’t happen without informed and intentional work at every stage of the software development life cycle. I hope that, no matter where you are on your journey, accessibility will be at the forefront and that these resources will guide you.