A11y Meetup Berlin is designed to bring together the accessibility, web performance, and inclusive design community to share and discuss ideas, best practices, and experiences. We would love to invite everyone interested in these topics.
What does “a11y” mean?
In short, a11y means “accessibility”. a11y is what is known as a numeronym, somewhat similar to an acronym. Essentially, numbers are used in place of letters to achieve the desired result. You may be familiar with other numeronyms, such as “K-9” for “Canine” or “W3C” for “World Wide Web Consortium”.
There are a number of ways a numeronym can be created. In the case of translating “accessibility” to “a11y”, the first and last letters of “accessibility” are preserved, replacing the remaining letters between with their sum total, 11.
One of the guiding reasons for this is the limited space available on social media platforms for posting content. For example, on Twitter – where the character limit was 140 (until November 2017) – by replacing the hashtag #accessibility with #a11y, the author now has another 9 characters available to them. Easily enough for another one or two important words on the subject of accessibility.
Source: The A11Y Project