Accessibility Resources

In here you will find links to many different resources related to accessibility. I've tried to group them under headings but some fall into more than one category. In some cases I'll list the same resource multiple times if it's clearly part of multiple categories. If there is only a tangential relationship, I'll probably not relist the reference.

In an attempt to keep this page from getting stale or opinionated, there is little to no detail beyond high level descriptions, where I felt it could be useful. Please click through the links and you should have the most current information directly from the sources themselves.

And this page is very far from exhaustive. That's not my goal, or realistic. If you need support locally or are looking for something fairly specific, do a web search (bing it ;) ).

Standards and Guidelines

Specifications for accessibility for the web as well as desktop and mobile applications are being developed at the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) within the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). It's full of great resources; here are some links to start your journey:

Accessibility Fundamentals Overview - links to articles, videos, tutorials, standards,and more
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - many regulations are based on meeting WCAG 2.1, level AA requirements
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) - authoring tools should be accessible themselves AND generate accessible content
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) - for developers of applications rendering web content, e.g., browsers, plugins, video players, readers
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) - ARIA can be powerful, be careful, it should be used only when necessary, and well understood. . If I were reviewing a pull request and saw, for example, a div with ARIA attributes, I would require an explanation of why a standard HTML component was not used instead.
ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (APG) - If you need to use ARIA, and there will be times you do, start with the APG.

Learn About Accessibility

Links here are to resources to learn about accessibility in general including how to develop accessible software applications. Many of the sources here are free (maybe after registering at their website) and some are commercial. Who knows what the future holds WRT business plans, though I'd be surprised if many of these resources changed their access policies. I might add some text with the link depending on my experience with the resource. Lack of description for a resource only means I don't know much about it, not whether it's useful or its quality.

The a11yproject - A great all around resource with links to go deeper into a variety of areas in accessibility.
AbilityNet (UK) - A charitable organization in the UK offering courses. Most seem to have some cost but some are free. I haven't tried any of the courses and don't really know anything about AbilityNet. They provide other assistance for free but maybe focused on the UK.
Accessibility Developer Guide - I haven't been through much of this site. What I have read sounds pretty good. And of course it's good to learn from multiple sources.
Accessibility on MDN - MDN (Mozilla Developer Network) has great docs for web development in general. Part of that is they have accessibility included throughout the documentation. They also have a great section dedicated to accessibility. MDN is free, and probably always will be. They have recently introduced a $5/month plan with some extra features but it's mostly a good way to support MDN. I highly recommend subscribing if you can afford it and if you plan to do a lot of web development.
web.dev accessibility course - web.dev, similar to MDN, is a great place to learn all about web development. This link is to their accessibility course. It's a work in progress and should be updated as technologies change.
Deque University - There are many courses with quizzes in a variety of topics. I'm adding some commentary here because I have full access to Deque University through their scholarship program. If you can afford it, or if your company provides a budget for education, Deque is a good option. It's also a good place if you want to study for certification exams from the IAAP.
WebAIM: Web Accessibility In Mind - WebAIM does a lot of cool stuff. They provide a variety of paid for services and have a lot of free resources as well. They also do interesting surveys and run accessibility tests across millions of sites. Under the resources link you'll find a plethora of information on a variety of accessibility topics. I recommend spending time looking through their site (an exercise for the reader).
Hadley Vision Resources - Hadley is probably better understood as a place for learning about vision loss, how to work with it and help those affected by it. I list it here because in 2017, when I was learning to use my phone and laptop, I listened to several lessons from Hadley. Back then I think it was Hadley School for the Blind. It sounds like there has been some rebranding since then, or maybe this is a separate division. It's probably not the best place for learning how to develop an accessible web or mobile application, but probably good for learning about blindness and how to live with it.

Learning From Individuals

The following list is to individuals associated with accessibility. It's probably mostly blogs though maybe other articles and activities. These are people I've come across in searches, articles, forums,slack, podcasts, etc... The list is alphabetical to not imply any sort of preferences as I don't personally know (yet) anyone on this list.

As I was adding the link for Estelle Weyl, I added a line about how encouraging I found it to know there are people like Estelle dedicated to making the web an accessible platform. I felt a bit uncomfortable with that comment being under a specific person. Estelle certainly does sound like an amazing person, and so do all the individuals in this list. And of course this list is limited by my exposure and certainly misses many people. So I'll say in this opening comment to the list it's great knowing there are so many talented and empathetic people dedicated to building and maintaining an accessible web.

Adrian Roselli - Adrian has been in accessibility for decades and is active in many areas. He is a very prolific blogger with, from what I've read so far, focused posts on specific topics. It makes for quick reading and a depth you might not find in longer, higher level posts.
Erik Kroes - Erik is an accessibility consultant in the Netherlands. Lots of interesting blog posts with great technical detail.
Estelle Weyl - Estelle has an amazing breadth and depth of web development knowledge. I first learned of her (commentary on my historic lack of attention to web dev)in a JS Party podcast, "A very !important lesson" . She and Amal (the host for that episode) go in to great depth in HTML and CSS including accessibility. Estelle is also a core author/maintainer (I don't know the correct title/label) at MDN and contributes to web.dev.
Karl Groves - I thought of creating a different category as I read through Karl's blog (e.g., "Commentary" perhaps). He is very informative with great depth in accessibility. His recent blogs though aren't what I was thinking of for learning, as in, here's how you make this element accessible using aria and JavaScript and CSS. I decided though to stick with the learning from individuals as Karl is a great resource to learn beyond coding examples. And it's a very good idea to learn about accessibility, the industry in general, as it's important to know history and pay attention to current events.
Manuel Matuzovic - I learned of Manuel from a link to his Web Components Accessibility FAQ in the articles channel on the a11y slack group. He goes in to great technical detail in his blog.
Marco's Accessibility Blog - I haven't met Marco in person, but have read his blog and exchanged some emails. He's a great guy and has been living accessibility for decades. There are many great articles on his blog, and don't think because they're a few, or several years old, they're no longer relevant. I was going through a Deque University course on WAI-ARIA roles and they have a link to a 2009 article from Marco on the course page. If you only read one of Marco's articles, or are only willing to read a single article on accessibility, read The web accessibility basics. But of course you're not going to read only one article. There are a lot of links on Marcos' site, look around and learn a lot.
Marcy Sutton - Lots of links to work Marcy has done in accessibility. Go to her bio to read about all her amazing contributions.
Scott O'Hara - Scott is another great resource for specifics on what, why, and how to build specific components in an accessible way.

Blindness Organizations

I don't know about the politics of these organizations though have heard opinions expressed. I'm going to steer clear of any commentary and simply list the URLs. Listing here is only an acknowledgement of existence, nothing regarding my opinions . And the lists are alphabetical (WRT American English), so no inferences. Though International is listed first, then country headings are also alphabetical.

International

Canadian Based

Canadian National Institute for the Blind

United States Based

Accessibility Focused Companies

As with organizations, there is intentionally little or no text with these links. I don't (as of 2022-09-15) have experience working with any of these companies. If you are in need of accessibility services, like with engaging with any company, do your research to find what meets your needs.

This section was initially intended for commercial companies. I started adding non profits partly to avoid another section, also because many of them offer services (e.g., web site analysis) as well.

Where are the overlay companies? I decided after reading a lot about the practices of overlay companies, to not add them here. Karl Groves has a lot to say about overlays, and it's consistent with everything else I've heard.

Testing

I hesitated adding a testing section as any of the companies listed above will do accessibility testing. They all have different approaches and different models of engagement/partnership. I did run across a link though that didn't fit anywhere else, so now we have a testing section. At some point I'll add things like tools and maybe blog posts addressing accessibility testing.

If you're looking for someone to help test your digital assets, the companies above might be a good starting list. Though you might be better served by an individual consultant or searching for local agencies. As always, an internet search can be helpful (be careful though you don't go with the company with the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) vs the best accessibility provider for your needs).

a11y-automation - an open source project seemingly focused on static analysis providing tools for developers to check their code for a variety of accessibility issues. I haven't tried it, it sounds interesting.
a11y.com - I don't know who runs this site. It's kind of cool, probably does web scraping and static analysis. If you care, heads up the URL is NOT https. Only http worked for me.
Accessibility Support - Go here to see which accessibility features are supported by which browsers on which platforms.
Assistiv Labs - Listing Assistiv Labs in the testing section as they seem focused on testing for accessibility. I've spoken with the cofounders and they have some great, and ambitious ideas.
Testing Accessibility (from Marcy Sutton) - Site created by Marcy Sutton with advice and workshops. A great reference especially if you're getting started in the domain.

Legal

I'm adding this section after reading a comment in the general channel of the a11y slack workspace. Someone posted a link to a United Nations (UN) resource with a table of the various laws passed in different countries. It seemed like something worth knowing, and something I'd easily lose track of. I don't expect this section to become a list of lawsuits or pontificating on the role law should play in accessibility. I'll add more links here if the seem to have a broad appeal from an informational perspective, not opinion.

UN reference to accessibility related laws various countries have established - Table of links to regulations passed by various countries.

Email Lists and Group Forums

With a little searching, you can find plenty of email lists and group forums with discussions on a multitude of topics related to accessibility. I'm not going to list much here, there are way too many with most of them focused on specific topics and/or products. I'll list ones I find particularly interesting that might be harder to find by searching alone.

groups.io - groups.io is fairly accessible thus has many groups related to accessibility. try searching from the main site for topics like "nvda" or jaws" or windows accessibility" or "blindness" and you'll find plenty of reading material.
program-l: email list for blind software developers - this is a great place to ask questions related to developing accessible software. It's also good for understanding issues facing blind developers. Or if you are looking for opinions from blind developers, ask here and you might get interesting feedback. The group is generally supportive and encouraging and there are many threads somewhat tangential to development. Take a look at the program-l archives for an understanding of topics discussed and to search to determine if your question has already been asked.

Feedback?

Do you have suggestions for additions to this page? Or think something is misrepresented? Please create an issue in the repo and be clear it is for the Accessibility Resources. I assume you could find an email address for me, and I might reply if you do. It would be helpful though for others reading this page to have discussions of its content tracked in the repo.

Thanks for your time and interest in accessibility. Cheers!