From the course: Creating Accessible PDFs

What is accessibility?

From the course: Creating Accessible PDFs

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What is accessibility?

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- [Instructor] So what exactly is accessibility? Well, accessibility by definition is making something able to be used, entered, or reached, making something easy to approach, reach, enter, speak with, or use, or making something suitable for disabled people to reach, enter, or use as a result of design modifications. When you start to look around you, you'll see examples of accessibility everywhere. Ramps, for example, allow users to more easily get to another location without having to navigate stairs. Another great example is curb ramps. In the last couple of decades, we've seen curb ramps appear all over the world. We see Braille buttons in places like elevators and restroom signs to help visually impaired users find their way. And one of the best examples I've seen is the European Euro note. Each denomination is a different size with a tactile feel to help visually impaired users identify which bill they have in their hand. This is amazing, and it really makes me consider the situation in my country and many other countries and the experience that visually impaired users have when trying to pay for goods. What I like to remind people of is the fact that accessibility benefits everyone. Ramps aren't just for disabled people. The elderly appreciate ramps because they make it easier to access areas. Curb ramps aren't just for people using wheelchairs. Parents pushing strollers and delivery people delivering goods on carts also benefit and appreciate curb ramps. Many of us end up being temporarily disabled due to an injury, and therefore also benefit from ramps and other accessibility features. In the context of this course, we're going to be talking about document accessibility, specifically, electronic documents, more specifically, PDF documents. There are special requirements needed to make documents accessible. I'd like to use an analogy here. When you pick up a newspaper to read it, what's the first thing you do? Right, you scan the headlines. Well, we need to provide that same capability when a user of assistive technology reads an electronic document by adding heading structure to that document. When proper heading structure is not added to a document or the document is not tagged at all, it's the equivalent of buying a newspaper at the newsstand, getting it home, and finding that all of the text is in 12-point type with no headings at all, or worse, that the document is completely blank. That wouldn't be acceptable to anyone, and nor should it be. In this course, we're going to focus on PDF document accessibility. We'll be adding functionality to the document to facilitate the making of an accessible PDF file to provide a rich reading experience to users of assistive technology. With all that being said, let's dive in and learn how to make PDF documents that are accessible to all users.

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