I just came across the following line of code in the second bootstrap waypoint:
<a href="#"><img class="smaller-image thick-green-border" src="https://bit.ly/fcc-relaxing-cat"></a>
I cannot in good conscience ignore this. A screenreader will read the resulting output in the following, rather helpful manner:
"link graphic
I appreciate the waypoint about the alt-tag being included in the FCC curriculum, please let there be no doubt about that. But I do think if FCC wants to teach proper HTML/CSS, a grave mistake like this should not be allowed to exist and the advice in the waypoint about the alt-tag should be taken for FCC's waypoints, ziplines, bonfires and oher exercises as well.
I also tripped over the lack of the 'for'-attribute in the label tag for forms. I suppose I can forgive that one for now since that attribute goes into some rather advanced semantic discussions and is exclusively for semantic correctness and accesibility, but I do hope this topic will be discussed at a later part in the curriculum. If not I'll have to write up a few waypoints meself, I reckon ;)
For completeness, the URL where I came across the offending line of code is below:
http://www.freecodecamp.com/challenges/waypoint-make-images-mobile-responsive

I'm completely in agreement with this. The lesson in question comes after students have completed the lesson on alt attributes and we should do everything we can to make it so that when students think about creating an img tag they see alt attributes as integral to the process.

I agree, this is an important part of modern web design. It sounds like at very least we need some new waypoints to cover it and then to bake it into subsequent lessons.

@zersiax If this is something you're passionate about, maybe you can help?

Naturally :) I'll clone the repo later today and see what can be done. I think the most important part right now is to make sure lessons that already exist have these practices included. I understand not everyone's up to snuff on the latest tips and tricks in this field, but adding alt attributes has been around for a while now :) FCC has a lesson on it and he way it is implemented now, i.e. mention it but not using it ourself, has the added problem of labeling it as something of an afterthought or extra thing to do. That's a dangerous mindset because this is indeed how many devs think about accessibility, something which is coming back around to bite them now more and more public sector websites for example need to comply with the WCAG AA specs.

Just had a look at the code for challenges, I shouldn't have a lot of trouble modifying it. What branch do I work in, still staging? Or do I make a separate branch for this?

Our Contribution Guidelines should answer your questions. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Can't seem to find how to assign this issue to me. Can't seem to do that from either the github issue page or the waffleboard, guess you have to be the repository owner to do that?

Unless you have write access to the main repo you cannot be assigned. That's ok, though, it's unlikely that someone will snatch this out from under you.

I don't think framing your contributing better accessibility practices as "patching up" other people's ill-considered work is the right way to think about this. We're an open source community full of people with different strengths and interests. If one of us contributes lessons that are effective teaching tools and you contribute better accessibility practices after the fact that's the beauty of open-source collaboration. We can all come together and contribute our strengths to make an end product that is better than any one of us could make alone.

Are there times your work will get accidentally removed and a lesson will take a step backward in some regard? Yep. There's a lot of moving parts and stuff like that is bound to happen from time to time. Such is the nature of a big project like this.
Should everyone try to be better about accessibility? Sure. But I don't think whether or not that happens should deter you from contributing what you can.

We all contribute what we're willing and able in the time we have. If time and a will to contribute are something you have I encourage you to do so. If not, no one will begrudge you that

At some point I will be doing a revamp on the entire HTML/CSS curriculum. It sounds like I need to get up to speed on accessibility best practices so when I do so I can update them.

I get where you're coming from - you really would be playing cleanup and if we don't have an across the board commitment to integrating accessiblity into the curriculum, you'll always be one step behind.

That said . . it's already written. What is done is done. If we're going to have a commitment to accessibility, we're GOING to have to clean up what we've got.

Is it something as simple as a checklist? Or is it deeper than that?

Hi,
If this is still an issue, I would be thrilled to help out. This is an area I am passionate about and in fact I am giving a talk on this exact subject at the world dev conference and providing a couple of seminars through the dev network. I would be more than happy to help out, if there is a need.

Hi there! I was just about to leave an issue when I saw this existing one. I'd like to help edit or create new waypoints to promote better a11y practices as well. I was just going through the basics when I reached the waypoint promoting the use of hash tags in anchor links and thought it'd be a good opportunity to teach others not to go this route. Instead, to use button elements. Here's a reference:

http://www.karlgroves.com/2013/05/14/links-are-not-buttons-neither-are-divs-and-spans/

Let me know how I can help. I'm still learning about accessibility, but have been trying to share what I've been learning this far on my blog:

http://rachievee.com/category/wordpress/accessibility-series/

Forking the project today to take a look and see where I can assist.

Hi!

I'm just learning to code and began using FreeCodeCamp to learn some front end dev. Wanted to try my hand at some pull requests. I was a Special Educator for 10 years so accessibility is near and dear to my heart, though I know nothing about how to code for it. I am very passionate about learning how to code for accessibility from the start. Let me know if there are still waypoints that I can help clean up. I would love to contribute to this issue, and learn by doing it.

Thanks!

Katie

Hi all, just been lurking a little as I think accessibility is such a critical component to add to the curriculum but don't have much time at this moment to help make it happen.

@buckeyekt - there are a few places to get more information if you want to read up on it
WebAIM is an easy intro that gives you the broad picture with some of the most common accessibility problems - they also have plenty of good checklists etc.
AccessIQ is an Australian based group that has good content including specific guides for devs, designers and content writers, but a lot of it is 'premium' paid content.
Then there's always the official Web Content Accessibility Guidelines if you don't mind diving straight into the documentation.

@zersiax I started looking at it yesterday, but ran into the roadblock of getting the challenge editing tool installed. I am not an accessibility expert, so my contribution to this issue is likely to be adding alt tags to all the images in the HTML challenges.

Once I've gotten the tool installed, it should be a quick job of adding those alt tags.

@zersiax No, I couldn't ever get the challenge editor software installed properly so I've just shelved doing any challenge related contributions for now.