World Book Day is 4th March and to celebrate, we thought we’d put together a list of some of the books we love or have on our to-be-read list that relate to accessibility.
Whether you’re completely new to the concept of accessibility or you’re an expert, these books will help you change your mindset on how you view user experience and people in general.
If you’re familiar with Huxley, you know we’re passionate about accessibility – we want the internet to be fully inclusive to all people, including those living with physical impairments, cognitive disabilities, and environmental or technological barriers.
Have any recommendations for books we should read? Send us an email at [email protected].
Accessibility for Everyone
Laura Kalbag
You make the web more inclusive for everyone, everywhere, when you design with accessibility in mind. Let Laura Kalbag guide you through the accessibility landscape: understand disability and impairment challenges; get a handle on important laws and guidelines; and learn how to plan for, evaluate, and test accessible design. Leverage tools and techniques like clear copywriting, well-structured IA, meaningful HTML, and thoughtful design, to create a solid set of best practices. Whether you’re new to the field or a seasoned pro, get sure footing on the path to designing with accessibility.
Buy it here: https://abookapart.com/products/accessibility-for-everyone
Disability Visibility: FIRST-PERSON STORIES FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Alice Wong
From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.
Buy it here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617802/disability-visibility-by-alice-wong/
A Web for Everyone: Designing Accessible User Experiences
Sarah Horton & Whitney Quesenbery
If you are in charge of the user experience, development, or strategy for a web site, A Web for Everyone will help you make your site accessible without sacrificing design or innovation. Rooted in universal design principles, this book provides solutions: practical advice and examples of how to create sites that everyone can use.
Buy it here: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/a-web-for-everyone/
Building For Everyone: Expand Your Market With Design Practices From Google’s Product Inclusion Team
Annie Jean-Baptiste
Establishing diverse and inclusive organizations is an economic imperative for every industry. Any business that isn’t reaching a diverse market is missing out on enormous revenue potential and the opportunity to build products that suit their users’ core needs. The economic “why” has been firmly established, but what about the “how?” How can business leaders adapt to our ever-more-diverse world by capturing market share AND building more inclusive products for people of color, women and other underrepresented groups? The Product Inclusion Team at Google has developed strategies to do just that and Building For Everyone is the practical guide to following in their footsteps.
Design for Real Life
Eric Meyer & Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Join Sara Wachter-Boettcher and Eric Meyer as they turn examples from more than a dozen sites and services into a set of principles you can apply right now. Whether you’re a designer, developer, content strategist, or anyone who creates user experiences, you’ll gain the practical knowledge to test where your designs might fail (before you ship!), vet new features or interactions against more realistic scenarios, and build a business case for making decisions through a lens of kindness. You can’t know every user, but you can develop inclusive practices that support a wider range of people. This book will show you how.
Buy it here: https://abookapart.com/products/design-for-real-life
Website Accessibility for Business
Tom Lavis
We had to put our own book on here!
Our intentions when entering into the world of online accessibility were to contribute to a more inclusive Internet. Some people like to see a business case for investing any time or budget into accessibility. So, we have written this book as a way of demonstrating how much more effective a business website is if it is fully accessible. We hope you take the time to read it – because it will make a difference to more people than you might have first thought.
Get it free here: https://books.huxleydigital.co.uk/