Autistic Pride Day

A community-led celebration of autistic identity and culture, held annually on 18 June since 2005. Autistic Pride Day centres the perspectives of autistic people themselves, emphasising pride, self-advocacy, and the social model of disability rather than ‘awareness’ framed around non-autistic audiences.

Autistic people use the web in many different ways. One example from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative’s user stories is Ian, a data entry clerk with autism. Ian generally finds digital technology easy, but unexpected interface changes after a software update can cause significant anxiety, especially when he hasn’t been told what changed or given time to adjust. Vague error messages like “input error”, non-literal language, metaphors, and recipe sites that bury content under autoplaying video and pop-up ads all create barriers. He benefits from plain language, consistent layout and navigation, descriptive error messages, and the ability to undo unintended changes.

Websites that work well for people with similar access needs use plain, literal language, keep layout and navigation consistent across pages, break content up with descriptive headings, avoid moving or auto-playing content (or give a clear way to stop it), and write error messages that say what went wrong and how to fix it.