My university is hosting a hackathon with the theme of "accessibility"--which we are allowed to interpret broadly. My team is currently brainstorming ideas. So HN, broadly speaking, what areas/industries/niches have you encountered with poor accessibility that can be greatly improved by an application?
"<i>What areas/industries/niches have you encountered with poor accessibility that can be greatly improved by an application?</i>"<p>Huge swathes of the web (websites and web 'apps') are plagued by poor accessibility.<p>My suggestion is to build something that is not tied to a particular niche or industry, but almost everyone uses: email in the browser.<p>This would not be an actual working email service with a functioning back-end - it would be a front-end demonstration of how to implement a fast, accessible service.<p>Some things to aim for that will make it standout from existing email services:<p>- The email service when rendered in a browser will load instantly without complicated JavaScript tricks. Your service will be accessible to screensavers without the need to have two versions (a 'basic', limited version and a 'enhanced' version you can overstuff with JavaScript).<p>- The service is built with HTML with the correct semantic elements so that it can be navigated quickly by a screen-reader and by keyboard. JavaScript is perfectly fine, but the service should be functional even without JavaScript (e.g. progressive enhancement).<p>- The email service when rendered in the browser can be zoomed into at least 300% without breaking the display of elements and still remaining usable. There will be sufficient contrast.<p>- The site must load faster than any existing email service and be usable no matter what someone's connection speed (even a 2G connection).<p>- Finally, it must look aesthetically pleasing too.<p>This might all seem impossible, but with HTML + CSS (and JavaScript when needed) it's perfectly possible to create something lighter, faster, less complicated and more accessible than what the major players produce.<p>Here is an example of an email layout from the Yahoo! Pure CSS framework - this is actually quite old, but the HTML source is less than 10kb: <a href="https://purecss.io/layouts/email/" rel="nofollow">https://purecss.io/layouts/email/</a>