Nina does not have a drinking problem. She likes a drink, sure. But what 17-year-old doesn’t? Nina’s mum isn’t so sure. But she’s busy with her new husband and five year old Katie. And Nina’s almost an adult after all. And if Nina sometimes wakes up with little memory of what happened the night before, then her friends are all too happy to fill in the blanks. Nina’s drunken exploits are the stuff of college legend. But then one dark Sunday morning, even her friends can’t help piece together Saturday night. All Nina feels is a deep sense of shame, that something very bad has happened to her... A dark, funny - sometimes shocking - coming of age novel from one of the UK’s leading comedians.

I've spend ages laughing at Shappi Khorsandi on stage - and now I've spent an afternoon crying over her prose.

At breakfast on holiday, I was offered a delightful mimosa. Refreshing, relaxing, and not a million miles away from the titular Nina's sneaky swig of vodka in the school toilets.

What is it which drives people to act against their best interests? Are our self-destructive habits inherited or learned?

This book is painfully funny and completely devastating. It absolutely haunted me and caused me no end of internal arguments about whether I agreed with some of the characters' actions.

Not for the faint-hearted, but a wonderfully observed tale.

The first thing to mention is that this is not a technical manual. There's the odd smattering of HTML in there - but this book is much more focussed on why accessibility matters and how to implement an accessibility positive culture - rather than which specific tags to use in your code.

This is a book for managers, designers, and programmers. As she points out, Accessibility is…

a team effort. The accessibility of the site isn’t just the responsibility of one lone developer who fixed all the problems before the page went live.

What is accessibility?

Before continuing this review, I first feel the need to explain the Social Model of Disability.

There is no such thing as disability. There are choices we make as a society which means that some people aren't able to fully participate in the world.

We choose to have doors which are too narrow for a wheelchair to fit through. We choose to print text in a tiny font with low contrast. We choose not to include subtitles on our videos. It isn't that people need us to make things specially accessible - we need to not put artificial barriers in the way of our users.

The web is pretty usable by default - it is up to us to keep it that way.

The second thing to know is that we all need accessibility eventually. One day you will be old, and your eyes will dim. Or you'll forget your headphones and want subtitles on a video. Or you'll be shivering with cold and need bigger touch-screen targets. Or you'll be ill, and need something written in simple language.

Accessibility is for everyone.

Why should I bother?

As Laura points out, there's a cynical reason to care about accessibility. Over two-million people in the UK have some sight-loss. It's just good business sense to be available to as many potential customers as possible. There are a whole range of people who are left out of the modern web.

In the same way that accessibility in our physical environment isn’t just about wheelchairs, accessibility on the web isn’t just about screen readers.

Laura Kalbag

Laura does an excellent job of explaining all the various techniques you can use to make your technology as inclusive as possible for everyone. Some may be obvious to you - but I'll guarantee you'll pick up some tips that you were previously ignorant about.

I consider myself well versed in accessibility issues - and I still found stuff in the book which caused me to re-evaluate some of the choices I've previously made.

It’s a tiny little star, how did it end up meaning “required”?

There's also a quick primer on legal situation in the UK, USA, and EU. People have a strongly defined right to accessibility - that almost certainly includes your website.

One thing I found particularly useful was strategies for recruiting users to test your site. Not only how to get a representative mix of people, but also how to avoid being rude to them.

This is a short book - 170-ish pages - and you'll probably read it in an afternoon. But you'll find yourself going back to it time-and-again. Each chapter clearly sets out the reasons behind adopting an accessible mindset and give specific strategies on making your team more open to empathetic design.

Verdict

Laura's book isn't a detailed guide to the intricacies of ARIA or to the proper use of alt tags - it is much more than that. Think of it as an introduction to the philosophy of accessibility. It is a book which is repeatedly quotable, well researched, and vital for anyone involved in web design.

It will spark conversations, and challenge you to reassess how to you approach building your sites.

Get the book

The eBook is available for $11 from A Book Apart - you get DRM free copies in ePub, Mobi, and PDF. The printed version is $21 + postage. Discounts apply when ordering multiple books.

My biases

I've known Laura for several years. I've even met Oskar - her enormous husky / malamute.

I sit on the W3C Advisory Committee, whose accessibility work features prominently throughout the book.

Created by my colleague Elliot Moore.