Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

ARIA Spec for the Uninitiated

Gerard K. Cohen, Accessibility Experience Team, Twitter Engineering Manager

Specs are usually not very fun, but I have learned that reading the ARIA specs is important to fully understand all the various options that are available. In this presentation, I will walk you through the ARIA spec and show you how to make the most out of it to create custom components with ARIA.

About Gerard K. Cohen

Over the last 25 years, Gerard K. Cohen has spent much of his life sitting in front of some kind of digital display. Whether it was as an Enterprise-class Systems Engineer, developing motion detection and digital video surveillance systems, or apps to distribute 3D medical animations, he has been eternally waiting on some kind of “Please wait…” indicator. Now, Gerard loves front end engineering so much that he is on a mission to make sure that the web is inclusive to all users, making rich internet experiences available for all. He believes a great user experience includes performance and accessibility.

During the day, Gerard is the Engineering Manager of the Accessibility Experience Team at Twitter. When he is not sleeping or drinking Zombies at tiki bars, he helps raise awareness by speaking at Front End and Accessibility conferences around the country. He is also the author of “Meeting Web Accessibility Guidelines,” “Introduction to Developing Custom Components with ARIA,” and “Accessibility: Testing and Screen Reader Use” on Pluralsight.

In 2022 we have a whole series of events for Front End Developers

Across 2022 Web Directions is presenting our series of online conferences for front end designers and developers. Focussed deep dives, they go far beyond what you might expect from conference programs.

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