Why a11y Isn’t Ironically Inaccessible

a11y is the numeronym for accessibiliy. the 11 signifies the 11 letters between a and y.

Some find it ironic how a11y seems to be inaccessible but what what if I told you that was the point? Heck, here’s one such reasoning.

The irony of this abbreviation is that a11y isn’t accessible. Using jargon in this way can be a fail for WCAG guideline 3.1.3. Some people with disabilities such as autism can struggle to understand non-literal language. Dyslexia can make some characters difficult to distinguish, and mixing letters and numbers in this way can exacerbate this. Screen readers often won’t understand how to pronounce non-common words and abbreviations, so the pronunciation of a11y can vary. When writing we should generally avoid domain-specific jargon where possible, especially where there there is a common alternative like accessibility.

I’m here to share why a11y is plenty accessible actually.

For one, as I said it’s a numeronym, which aren’t anything new (moreso for web development). After all there’s:

• W3C for the World Wide Web Consortium,
• i18l for internationalization,
• WWII for World War Two,
• K9 for Canine,
• and others.

In short, a11y is for web accessibility.

Note the quote I added up there? It’s from a post titled a11y is not accessible published on… mobilea11y.com! You say a11y isn’t accessible and yet your website is named after it? Gotcha.