Surface Adaptive Kit makes Microsoft’s laptops more accessible Microsoft is creating a “Surface Adaptive Kit” for its range of laptops/tablets, to better accommodate people with disabilities. The kit includes “keycap labels, bump labels, port indicators and device openers”. For example, a device opener includes a pull tab and ring, to make it easier to open… [Read More]
Don’t Believe the Type! (video, 50m) I discovered this axe-con 2021 video via Richard Morton’s tweet. I thought it would be good to follow-up on the piece I wrote about the Hyperlegible font. The presentation, by Gareth Ford Williams, David Bailey and Bruno Maag, talks through the data they’ve gathered from around 7,000 hours of… [Read More]
We start off with a Twitter special! I’ve already recently written about how Twitter’s new design has been giving users headaches. But there have been a flurry of other articles about Twitter, so I thought I’d round them up for you. What’s Really Wrong With the New Twitter Font An interview with Frederick Brennan, who… [Read More]
A Deep Dive on Skipping to Content Paul Ratcliffe describes a “2021-friendly” implementation of a skip link. It looks something like this (note that the text is hidden visually until it is focused – I’ve omitted this from the code below): <a href=”#skip-link-target”>Skip to main content</a> <a href=”#skip-link-target” id=”skip-link-target”>Start of main content</a><main>the content</main> Paul points… [Read More]
Your Image Is Probably Not Decorative Eric Bailey explains why most images nowadays need some form of alternative text. You can ‘nullify’ images – removing them from the screen reader experience – by adding an empty alt text, i.e. <img alt=”” …>. This should only be used when the image doesn’t convey information that is… [Read More]
Coursera accessibility courses A recommendation by my colleague Stephanie Hill: “Top Web Accessibility Courses” by Coursera. Some interesting ones highlighted below. Design: An Introduction to Accessibility and Inclusive Design Web Design for Everybody Capstone Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design Basics of Inclusive Design for Online Education Testing: Test Accessibility of your Design with A11ygator… [Read More]
What Happens When a Blind Person Test Drives VoiceOver Recognition? An article by Rhea Althea Guntalilib, describing her experience of using the new “VoiceOver Recognition” features of iOS 14. It is a collection of tools including “Screen Recognition” (which I’ll talk about below), “Text Recognition” (which detects text found in images) and “Image Descriptions” (which… [Read More]
Emojis and accessibility: How to use them properly Ryan Tan shares some tips for accessible emoji usage, mostly in terms of screen reader support, and covering a mixture of ‘design tips’ vs ‘everyday content’: Design: on buttons, don’t use emojis to replace words. E.g. use “Like” rather than “👍”, which could be ambiguous. Don’t use… [Read More]
How anyone can make Maps more accessible Google relies on its community of Local Guides to update Google Maps information by, for example, inputting whether a restaurant has tables suitable for people who use wheelchairs. These guides share some actionable tips for crowd-sourcing information to benefit everyone, particularly people with disabilities: An accessibility checklist can… [Read More]
Should you use an <h1> in email code? A thorough investigation by Mark Robbins, looking at the state of webmail across a dozen different providers. 60% of screen reader users prefer pages containing just one <h1> with the document title, whereas 33.3% prefer two <h1> headings, for the site name and the title. Given a preference for… [Read More]
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