To build better software, learn about accessibility

“Every person deserves the equal right to access information.” Those are the words of Paul Chiou, a developer whose disability has been a catalyst for his creativity. Chiou argues that developers who pay attention to accessibility also ensure quality software.

Annalu Waller, a rehabilitation engineer and Professor of Human Communication Technologies at Dundee University, expresses a similar sentiment. Waller, who has cerebral palsy, writes about “ordinary extraordinary users.” Developers can use this term to remember that designing for extraordinary users also benefits ordinary users in extraordinary circumstances. An example? Designing a system for those with visual impairments can also help someone struggling to read an e-reader in bright sunlight.?

Waller and Chiou are both champions of open source software solutions, which are built for customization, and they remind developers that technology developed to level the playing field for people with disabilities ends up benefitting society as a whole.?

Paralyzed from the neck down, Chiou does everything from writing and coding to?playing Dota 2 by using a combination of ready-made and custom assistive technologies.?This includes a tool that senses pressure changes in a tube that Chiou either sips from to left click or puffs into to right click.?

Designing for equal access to information not only ensures quality software, but also fuels productivity and innovative solutions. ??? To keep accessibility at the center of software development, backend developer Joe Devon co-founded Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). It all started with a blog post he authored in 2011, where he urged the global developer community to:

• Agree on a day where developers raise awareness and know-how on making sites accessible
• Test at least one page on their site in an accessibility tool
• Fix the page, blog about what they changed, and inspire others to follow their example?

Ship to learn ??

In the spirit of Devon’s original call to action, and GitHub’s core principle of “ship to learn,” we encourage developers to continue building and iterating on inclusive, accessible software.

• Our accessibility engineers recently explored what a code search sounds like and how to review a keyboard experience.?In response, we recently shipped two accessibility features: global navigation with keyboard and a new code search for developers who use a screen reader.?

• GitHub’s Primer team—who’s responsible for creating inclusive, responsive, and efficient UI experiences for a diverse range of users—also improved color contrast in both default light and dark mode.?The result was passing color contrast requirements and resolving hundreds of accessibility issues across more than 1,000 use cases.
• And GitHub’s software engineer Ian Sanders developed a Chrome extension that allows you to check the accessibility of your GitHub markdown.?

• As we stated above, open source software is the backbone of custom-built, accessible software. Waller urges the software industry to provide open source projects with the same level of resources that are given to commercial solutions. One way to do that is by supporting and celebrating open source maintainers.
• But shipping accessibility features is only the beginning. Building great, inclusive software requires frequent iteration and reflection.
• We invite you to join other developers in the accessibility discussion by sharing your questions, ideas, or virtual high-fives.
• We also want to share the guide to accessible retrospectives put together by the GitHub Accessibility leadership team. Retrospective tools are often inaccessible, as they depend on drag-and-drop functionality, images, color coding, and undefined digital spaces with no clear headings or navigational anchors. In this guide, you’ll learn tools and processes that fully engage every team member.?

Read more stories about the GitHub accessibility program’s mission to make all developers happy and productive.

Looking for a great podcast? In honor of GitHub’s Maintainer Month, we invite you to listen to a bonus episode of The ReadME Podcast, featuring Kubernetes superstar, Kelsey Hightower.?

From the fundamental role that empathy plays in maintainership to building a succession plan and identifying the next set of leaders, hosts Martin Woodward and Neha Batra dive deep into Kelsey’s thoughts on nurturing successful open source communities. Understanding that people have a choice in what communities they engage in, Kelsey highlights the importance of visibility for underrepresented groups in making spaces welcoming to diversity and inclusion. “I go to these conferences and people who look like me, they’re there and we don’t have to coordinate anymore. We don’t have to have a sub-Slack channel where we decide what conferences we’re going to so we can be safe. We know we’re supposed to be there, that we add a lot of value to be there.”

Closing the episode, we hear from maintainers about the people in their communities that have helped push them forward in their work and brought them deeper into projects. Listen now.

Where in the world is GitHub? ??

• On May 30, from 12-1 pm ET, we’re hosting a virtual sneak peak of GitHub Copilot X. Register and join Christopher Harrison, an enterprise advocate at GitHub, who will demonstrate how you can take advantage of GitHub Copilot as it evolves into a readily available AI assistant throughout the entire development lifecycle.
• On June 1, Andrea Griffiths, senior product manager, will lead a virtual GitHub Copilot workshop as a part of Globant’s AI Code Fest. This workshop will be a pre-event for AI Code Fest, which will take place June 10, and is available to all AI Code Fest attendees tuning in from Latin America. ???????????????????? Griffiths will demonstrate how you can use the AI pair programmer to accelerate your workflow, tackle technical challenges, and develop innovative solutions in record time.
• On June 2 we’ll be at the React Summit in Amsterdam. ???? Solutions engineer Senna Parsa will share how you can use AI to increase developer satisfaction, and design engineer Sid Kshetrapal will discuss styling architecture in Primer. We’ll also stream on June 6, with developer advocate Rizel Scarlett showing you how she used Copilot Voice (formerly known as “Hey, GitHub!”) to write a React app.
• From June 5-8, join our Social Impact and Policy teams at RightsCon in San Jose, Costa Rica ???? and virtually. We’ll discuss building open source software for scientific research for low-resourced states, and developing indexes on internet platform data for social sector research.?

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