My last official contribution to GitHub was something I’ve wanted for a long time: Writing the code to enable displing an ACCESSIBILITY.md file’s contents on the repository landing page. This content lives in the same tab component that the README, License, Code of Conduct, Security, and important information is surfaced.
For example, I’m using an ACESSIBILITY.md file located in ./github to communicate the accessibility statement on my a11y-webring.club repository. Here’s an image of it in action:
The file only appears if it is supplied, so it is not a required part of creating or maintaining a repository. However, it is my hope that the act of providing one becomes more commonplace the same way providing those other special kinds of files are.
Another broader hope I have is that this promotion of content helps to normalize accessibility as a consideration and practice in some small way—something that helps to send a signal of a mature software project.
I’m excited to see how people use this new addition to the platform. I would also like to extend a huge thank you to Jan Maarten and Maria Lamardo for their help getting this effort across the finish line.