I find myself falling down deeper and deeper inside the rabbit hole that my profession as a designer for the web is. The more complex, daunting and exciting the task gets to make something work on an unknown number of devices, for users with a wide range of technical, physical and mental capabilities in an even wider set of context and surroundings, the more I find solace in the core ideas of the 'early web': This is for everyone. From my experience in the last 20 years, we focussed on the wrong side of web 'design'; the adaptation of mostly visual aesthetics, learned from centuries of printed media. Even the focus on 'interactivity' was miss-led, ignoring the real strength of this medium: Reach. This is for everyone.

Web accessibility isn't a feature, it's a quality. (…) Through the exploration of a set of example front end design patterns, the book demonstrates how inclusive design needn't be any harder or more time consuming. It's just a different way of working: one which results in larger, happier audiences for your creative work

As with the idea of 'mobile first' responsive design, working *with* the medium requires a mind-shift, but if done right, and early in the process of 'designing' something for the web, it is not neccesarily harder or more time consuming. On the contrary, once we let go of the need to 'design'control every last interface element a browser can offer, we can focus on enhancing, building out from an already working base experience. Which is quite liberating in terms of stress and the never-ending search for polyfills and workarounds.

Status: Currently reading