Presidents and Web Accessibility?

There's lots of news to follow during the year of a presidential election. Most of it is pointless, toxic, trolling for attention and donations, or some combination. But one article caught my attention by asking, "How accessible are the presidential candidates' websites?"

The answer was surprisingly yes. I was expecting many painfully inaccessible errors that would make it almost impossible for many users to use. Instead, both were more accessible than average. Biden got a final WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) score of 7.2, and Trump scored 6.8.

What's even more encouraging is that the issues of inaccessibility are not insurmountable. They can be addressed with simple yet impactful fixes: adding alt text, enhancing color contrast, improving link text, and refining visual focus styles. The most significant issue, Trump's site's lack of keyboard accessibility, can also be rectified with relative ease.

Both sites are better than average pages found in the WebAIM Million, but both could improve significantly with a few relatively simple changes that would not require throwing out an entire widget or design. They would just involve tweaks to what's already there.

It's understandable to get extra cynical around presidential election season. But I'll take this article as a small reason to be more hopeful. It's also another reminder that so many accessibility issues take little effort but have big payoffs.

Read Web Accessibility in the 2024 Presidential Campaigns by John Northup.

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