Green code: building accessible and sustainable websites for people and the planet
In this workshop, you’ll learn development techniques to help make your site more sustainable and accessible, where the two intersect and complement one another, and how teams can embed the process from start to finish.
Sustainability
The internet emits a truly enormous amount of CO2. Indeed, it’s estimated that across the world, the collective carbon consumption of the internet is equivalent to that of the entire airline industry (Source: ClimateCare) - that’s around 3.7% of all global emissions (Source: BBC). But the good news is if you're already working towards making your site both accessible and performant, you are probably a good chunk of the way towards creating more sustainable products and services.
Accessibility
According to WebAIM’s 2024 Million Report, 96.3% of home pages tested presented easily preventable accessibility issues. Considering accessibility and inclusion in your approach to design will benefit all your users. Crafting accessible products and services isn’t just a checkbox exercise. And it’s not just an effort to meet legislative compliance, but instead a golden opportunity for organisations to embrace accessibility as a core principle, and deliver the best user experience for all.
In this workshop, you’ll learn development techniques to help make your site more sustainable and accessible, where the two intersect and complement one another, and how teams can embed the process from start to finish.
Attendees will learn:
- How to benchmark a website's carbon output
- Best practice for building sustainable websites
- Practical examples of writing green code
- How to structure sites for accessibility
- How to use a screen reader
- Practical examples of how to test for accessibility
As
part of the workshop participants will be shown how to benchmark their
sites for sustainability and learn some of the key aspects of creating a
greener site.
Participants will also get the chance to explore
assistive technology on their own devices, and a simulation of the user
experience of individuals with various disabilities.
Ahead of the workshop, we encourage attendees to install the Chrome extension https://wave.webaim.org/extension/ and Windows users to please install https://www.nvaccess.org/download/
Presenters:
Rachel Breeze has been a developer for over 25 years, working in the Microsoft .Net stack. Rachel has been working with Umbraco since 2012 and is a 4x Umbraco MVP. She is passionate about accessibility, supporting and encouraging future developers, and in her spare time she enjoys scuba diving. She also drinks copious amounts of tea.
Rick Butterfield has been a software developer for 12 years, is an Umbraco MVP, and has experience of building bespoke web and mobile solutions primarily in the Microsoft .NET stack. He has a keen interest in emerging technologies and is passionate about accessibility and creating sustainable solutions for clients.
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About the Digital Skills Festival
This
event is part of Professional Development Day, the final day of the
Digital Skills Festival 2024. The Digital Skills Festival is an annual
event hosted by Manchester Digital, aimed at bringing the tech community
in the North West together to build our digital future. This event, and
all events within the Festival, are free to attend thanks to the
generous support of our Sponsors.
To learn more about the Festival: https://digitalskillsfestival.com/
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