The Web We Almost Built (And Why It Took a Pandemic to Fix It)

The Web We Should Have Built

I am a high school dropout who taught himself to code. The spark was a single line in an HTML book - wrap “hello world” in a tag, save it, open it in a browser, watch it render - and after that I taught myself the rest from Google, one search at a time. I say that not for sympathy but because it is directly relevant to what I want to talk about: accessibility. Not the compliance checkbox version. The real version. The version where you understand, in your bones, what it feels like when the door is not built for you.

This site - 211j.com - is built to WCAG 2.1 AA. Accessibility is one of the four core services I offer. And the reason I care about it has nothing to do with avoiding lawsuits, although you absolutely should avoid those too.

Knowing What Exclusion Feels Like

There is no “proper” path into web development. But there is definitely a path that the industry assumes you took: computer science degree, internships, junior developer role, gradual progression. When you do not have that - when you have a GED and 11 years of bartending and hotel work and a rougher backstory instead of a resume - you learn very quickly what it feels like to not fit the expected mold.

I spent years feeling like I had snuck into a building where I did not belong. Reverse-engineering WordPress core line by line because I did not have the formal education to understand it from the documentation. Coming in the back door, up the building, across the street, and digging a tunnel, because the front door had a credential check I could not pass.

That experience - of being capable but excluded by the structure, not the substance - is exactly what accessibility is about. When a screen reader cannot parse your website, you have built a front door with a credential check. When your form does not work with a keyboard, you have told someone their way of navigating the world is not welcome here. It is the same thing, just with different barriers.

The Dark Ages Were Real

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, web accessibility was treated like a stretch goal. Something you added in “phase two.” Phase two never came. I know because I was there, building sites that technically worked but were hostile to anyone not using a mouse and a 1080p monitor.

Clients would ask me to remove focus outlines because they “looked ugly.” I would try to explain why they mattered. The clients would not care. And I would do it anyway, because I needed the money and I had not yet developed the spine to push back on things I knew were wrong. I am not proud of that, but I am not going to pretend it did not happen.

The entire industry had this collective blind spot. We had the tools - WCAG guidelines existed, ARIA was a spec, semantic HTML was not a new concept. We just did not use them because nobody was making us, and the people who needed them were not loud enough to override the sprint deadline.

Then the Pandemic Kicked the Door Open

March 2020. Suddenly everybody’s grandmother needed to use Zoom. The uncle who printed every email was navigating web apps from his kitchen table. The coworker who could not figure out Google Docs was now living inside it eight hours a day.

The web went from “nice to have” to essential infrastructure overnight. And when something is essential, it had better work for everyone. The pandemic did not just expose the digital divide. It made every accessibility failure personal. Video calls without captions. Government sites that screen readers choked on. Educational platforms that you could not navigate with a keyboard.

Here is what I think actually happened, though: COVID made everyone temporarily disabled. Could not leave the house? Mobility impairment. Could not understand people through masks? Hearing impairment. Brain fog? Cognitive impairment. Suddenly accessibility was not about “them.” It was about us. The empathy switch flipped because the comfortable majority got a taste of what the minority had been dealing with forever.

The Lawsuits Helped Too

I would love to say the industry changed because we all grew a conscience. Some of us did. But the 23% increase in ADA website lawsuits in 2020 and the roughly 15% jump in 2021 definitely accelerated things. The Domino’s Supreme Court case. Target’s $6 million settlement. Suddenly, accessibility was not just the right thing to do. It was the expensive thing to not do.

Fear of lawsuits is not the best motivator. But I will take it. Whatever gets the focus outlines back on the page.

The Tools Finally Caught Up

Credit where it is due: the tooling got dramatically better. Axe DevTools. WAVE. Lighthouse baking accessibility audits into every developer’s workflow. ESLint plugins that flag missing alt text and ARIA violations. GitHub Actions that fail your build if you ship inaccessible code.

The frameworks caught up too. React’s focus management improved. Vue added ARIA utilities. Even WordPress started shipping with better accessibility defaults. The excuse of “it is too hard” evaporated once the tools made it as easy as catching a missing semicolon.

But here is the thing: the tools were always there. WCAG 1.0 was published in 1999. We had 20 years of guidelines before the industry started taking them seriously. The tools did not catch up. We caught up to the tools.

Where I Stand Now

Every site I build is accessible. This is not aspirational language. The 211j theme running this site is built to WCAG 2.1 AA. Every focus outline is intentional. Every color contrast ratio is tested. Every interactive element works with a keyboard. Dark mode is not just an aesthetic choice - it is an accessibility feature for people with photosensitivity and migraines.

Accessibility is one of my four service offerings, listed right alongside development, maintenance, and design. Not as an add-on. Not as “phase two.” As a core deliverable, because that is what it should have been from the beginning.

When I was teaching myself to code - GED in hand, bartending shifts paying the bills, reverse-engineering WordPress because the formal documentation assumed a knowledge base I did not have - I was experiencing a version of inaccessibility. The knowledge was there. The capability was there. But the path to it was not built for someone like me. I got through anyway, because I am stubborn to a degree that is probably clinical. But stubbornness should not be a prerequisite for participation.

The Web We Owe People

The ADA is 35 years old. The web is 34. We have had the guidelines, the specifications, the tools, and the moral imperative for decades. What we lacked was the will. The pandemic supplied it, the lawsuits reinforced it, and now there is no excuse left.

If you are reading this with a screen reader: first, thank you for keeping us honest. Second, if anything about this site does not work for you, email me. I will fix it. That is not a legal disclaimer. That is a promise from someone who knows what it is like to find the door closed and have to dig a tunnel instead.

We ran out of excuses a long time ago. Build the web for everyone, or admit you are building it for yourself.