True Access
Digital accessibility gets compared to curb cutouts. I hear it frequently in talks—hell, I’ve referenced it in talks before. Or sometimes people give the example of a door opening the “correct” way so that someone in a wheelchair can open the door with less of a struggle. I’ve started to change my perspective though. The most realistic analogy is that accessibility is the door itself.
There’s a few reasons for this:
- these shouldn’t be add-ons, afterthoughts, or duct-tape covered form fields
- the door ends up being used by and helping everyone
- if your house is being built by a great carpenter, chances are that they’re going to build a door. They’re going to build a damn good door that is functional—and looks good—without you having to specify “edge cases” and afterthoughts.