FCIP – May 28: Creating Accessible Web Components – A Developer’s Perspective

Accessibility is an important consideration at every stage of building a website or web application.

From initial artwork through to content entry and beyond, steps must be taken to guarantee that the accessibility of the final product is not being compromised.

In many respects, assuring accessibility in design and content entry can be somewhat easier than in the development of the site structure itself.

• There are myriad tools available that will check colors, font sizes, alt tags, the presence of videos, and so many other things.
• But there are very few that will check that a pop-up menu behaves as it should with keyboard navigation and screen readers.

Join us on Tues, May 28, as Kevin Sholander of CodeGeek takes us on a deep dive into the process of taking a non-accessible HTML pop-up widget and testing and analyzing it to determine its shortcomings, and then rewriting it to make it compliant.

Specifically, we will be looking at:

• use of keyboard for navigating and interacting with a website
• semantic HTML
• ARIA roles, attributes, and states
• testing with screen readers
• determining expected compliant behavior and using JavaScript to accomplish it

Participants will leave with:

1. resources for referencing expected behaviors of web components
2. a basic understanding of how to compare actual behavior against expected behavior
3. knowledge of the various roles that HTML components can have—and how they are selected and assigned
4. an example of compliant code that will be developed during the presentation

During this presentation, we will actually be writing HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Participants would benefit from having a working knowledge of these coding languages as the presentation will be targeted specifically at developers.

The presentation will start at 6:00pm with Q&A to follow. RSVP today!

MORE ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Kevin Sholander is a computer engineer who spent his younger years designing peripherals, graphics processors and CPUs for the likes of NCR, HP and AMD.

For the past 18 years, Kevin has worked as a full-stack web developer and has used his skills to build websites and applications for more clients around the world than he can possibly remember.

Kevin spent some time as an adjunct instructor of CIS at Front Range Community College and helped put together and teach their WebDev Bootcamp. He now finds himself surrounded by fellow geeks in his position of Senior Developer at CodeGeek, where he gets to build lots of really cool things for clients while also developing and maintaining their internal dev and productivity toolset.

Kevin loves a good challenge, especially for a noble cause, and accessibility fits both of those, so building and testing accessible websites brings him great joy.

When not sitting in front of the computer, you can probably find Kevin tending to his vegetable garden or at some Disney park (California, Florida, Tokyo, Paris—still waiting to go to Beijing and Hong Kong, but maybe one day!).

Together with his family, Kevin also owns and operates the Markey Escape Rooms in Fort Collins, where he gets to mix his knowledge of hardware and software with his imagination to come up with creative ways to keep people locked in a room.

► Learn more about Kevin and CodeGeek at: codegeek.net

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★ MEET OUR SPONSOR –> CodeGeek
As our Platinum Sponsor for May, CodeGeek is covering the cost of pizza and beverages for this meetup!

CodeGeek specializes in custom website design and development for clients in almost every industry.

► Learn more about CodeGeek at: codegeek.net

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INNOSPHERE DETAILS (to attend in-person)
320 E Vine Dr Suite 101
Fort Collins, CO 80524
Google Map

👉 If you plan to attend in person, RSVP is required, use the Attend Online button. Then please leave a comment so we have an accurate # for food and drinks.

ZOOM DETAILS (to attend virtually):
You can get the LIVE STREAMING LINK in 3 ways:

1. It will be emailed to you as soon as you RSVP via Meetup.
2. We will also email the Zoom link to all registered attendees after 2pm on the day of the Meetup
3. After you RSVP you will see the link on this Meetup event page itself (only visible to registered attendees).

👉 If you'd like to attend virtually, RSVP is required to get the Zoom link.