About Wuhcag and Luke McGrath

I’m Luke McGrath, an accessibility consultant and writer. You can tell I’m a writer because I wrote How to Meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. You can also tell I didn’t have any help with the title.

Web Accessibility Bio

I first got involved in web accessibility and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 in 2011. Since then, I have learned everything I can about web accessibility – and I don’t expect to ever stop learning. I’m now putting my skills to the test and helping businesses make their websites accessible.

When I first read about web accessibility, I wanted to know everything and update all of my websites to AAA compliance immediately. A day later, I had scaled back my ambitions. I couldn’t make head nor tail of the guidelines themselves, their sufficient criteria, endless definitions of terms I’d never heard of before, and general incomprehensibility left me bewildered. So I set out to make things better. I scoured through the techniques for every guideline and distilled all the advice down according to two simple criteria:

1. Was it useful advice?
2. Was it future-proof?

From this benchmark I distilled over 700 hundred pages down to a little over 100. I used my own notes to write a book to help other people in the same situation.

How to Meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 is everything you need, and nothing you don’t: the simplest web accessibility tactics that produce the most benefit for your users. On the back of the book’s success, I began to expand this website as a place for me to talk about web accessibility in terms real people can understand.

Here’s some lovely feedback I got from a client:

We had the pleasure of working with Luke on a very large project. We found him to be responsive, knowledgeable and extremely pragmatic in helping us steer the path between best practice and client operational requirements. Would happily recommend him.

– Chris Ryan

In May 2014 I was honoured to talk about web accessibility and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines on Jen Simmons’ The Web Ahead Podcast, Episode 69.

Personal Bio

Born: 10th January 1986
Hometown: Newark-on-Trent
Current: Newcastle upon Tyne
Occupation: Digital Content Specialist
Education: LLb Law (Hons) 2:1, MA Creative Writing (Distinction) – both Newcastle University

I’m a writer, marketer and web accessibility consultant living in Newcastle upon Tyne. I have two beautiful daughters, Vani (3) and Anvi (1). I started writing when I realised how unfulfilling my law degree was.  I took a Masters in Creative Writing and graduated from Newcastle University with a distinction and a quarter of a novel.

I’m fairly active on social media, but you’ll most likely find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I like Korean and old Universal horror films, as well as classic television like Quincy, The A-Team and Quantum Leap. If you’d like to work with me on anything, contact me.