Reading material

By: George Rhodes
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We often get asked if we have any good recommendations for accessibility or disability related books, TV shows or other resources. The best place to look for a lot of day to day practical references is online and we have links to other useful sites and resources spread throughout our guidance articles.

Sometimes though, there are great pieces of print material, a TV show or documentary that we see or are suggested that is worth the watch or read. This article is a living list of these recommendations presented in no particular order.

Reading list

A Web for Everyone: Designing Accessible User Experiences

Sarah Horton and Witney Quesenbery

Practical Web Inclusion and Accessibility: A Comprehensive Guide to Access Needs

Ashley Firth

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law

Haben Girma

The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe

Ellen Clifford

Form Design Patterns

Adam Silver

Inclusive Components

Heydon Pickering

Up Cripple Creek: A Journey to Immobility

Jon McVey

Designing Accessible Learning Content: A Practical Guide to Applying best-practice Accessibility Standards to L&D Resources

Susi Miller

Life of Roy, Does He Take Sugar?

Richard Dunn and Roy Hirst

Web Accessibility Cookbook

Manuel Matuzovic

What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility

Sarah Horton and David Sloan

Watch list

Crip Camp

Available on Netflix, the 2020 documentary follows Camp Jened, a New York summer camp for teens with disabilities and those campers who became activists for disability rights and the impact they had on US accessibility legislation.

Paralympics: The Unfair Game

BBC 2021 documentary. Former Paralympic athlete Richie Powell investigates the sport's classification system, which is accused of being flawed, easily manipulated and lacking credibility.

Rising Phoenix

Available on Netflix, the 2020 documentary looks at the history of and current Paralympic Games.

Mental: A History of the Madhouse

BBC 2010 documentary (which can be found in full on YouTube) looking at the closure of Britain's insane asylums.

Mission: Accessible

Channel 4, 2020. Rosie Jones, a comedian with a disability is on a mission to help disabled people plan fun-filled adventures. With guest comedians Rosie visits places across the UK to compile a guide to the accessible British vacation.

All the light we cannot see

Netflix 2023 limited series. A work of fiction, the story of Marie-Laure, a blind French teenager, and Werner, a German soldier, whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. In the series, Marie's father builds her highly detailed tactile maps of both Paris and Saint-Malo to help her learn her surroundings and navigate around town independently.

Sex Education - Season 4, Episode 7

Netflix 2023 series. A sub plot to this series was the barriers to education faced by Isaac, one of the cast who is a wheelchair user. The main issue is the lack of a working lift on the college campus. The lift once again not working and stopping Isaac from getting to his exam triggers collective action about the missing accessibility considerations at the college affecting different students.

Webbed Briefs

Heydon Pickering's collection of joke filled videos present many web topics in a flippant but easy to understand and compelling way. Topics such as; What is ARIA even for?, What are accessibility overlays?, and What happened to text inputs? are all great accessibility related watches.

A Silent Voice

Deaf representation has been noticeably growing in TV and film in recent years with noted appearances in big films like Marvel’s Eternals. A Silent Voice is a slice-of-life anime film from 2016 about a young man who is ostracized by his classmates after he bullies a deaf girl to the point where she moves away. Years later, he sets off on a path for redemption. The film includes some dark themes such as bullying and suicide but is an early example of a deaf main character and the day to day challenges they face.

A Sign of Affection

In stark comparison to A Silent Voice, this slice-of-life anime series is about another deaf girl and here infatuation with a guy who loves learning languages. It is a happier show that does a good job of presenting some of the communication challenges deaf people have in day to day life.

Suggest something

If you have any suggestions for other resources that you think we should read / watch and should be added to this list, please contact us at info@makethingsaccessible.com

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