Accessibility monitoring of public sector websites and mobile apps 2020-2021 This report details how the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) monitored around 600 public sector websites for accessibility issues over almost two years. They tested based on the EN 301 549 standard, version 2.1.2, which maps closely to WCAG 2.1 accessibility levels A and… [Read More]

Dyslexic Myths Presented as Truths Gareth Ford Williams writes about the Smashing Magazine article Adding A Dyslexia-Friendly Mode To A Website, which I covered in dai11y 13/12/2021. He is highly critical of it, both here and as a comment on the article itself, for the following reasons. Firstly, the entire concept of a ‘dyslexia mode’… [Read More]

How many people with disabilities use our site? Hidde Devries writes the one article that you’ll want to direct people to whenever they ask that question. Implicitly, the person who asked that question is trying to find the return on investment. Hidde asks “what will we do with that data? What if it is a… [Read More]

Niagara-made audio game nominated for accessibility Game Award The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, by Falling Squirrel games company, is an audio-only game, released in August 2021. The game gained a nomination at this year’s Game Awards (which was watched by 80 million people in 2020). I found a more informative article on digitaltrends, which… [Read More]

Collaborative planning, the forgotten step of accessible development A deque article describing “a11yBID”, or “Accessibility Business Informed Development”. It’s essentially BDD (“Behaviour Driven Development”), in that it involves conversations between stakeholders and cross-functional team members to define Acceptance Criteria (AC), often in a formatted plain language format called Gherkin. a11yBID is different to BDD as… [Read More]

The CSS “content” property accepts alternative text Stefan Judis writes about a CSS feature I didn’t know about. You should subscribe to Stefan’s newsletter too! The before/after pseudo elements are often paired with content to add text or icons next to your elements. Example: .item::before { content: “★” }. Used in HTML, <a class=”item” href=”#”>new… [Read More]

Adding A Dyslexia-Friendly Mode To A Website EDIT: it is possible there is some misinformation in the linked article. Please see Gareth Ford Williams’ highly critical rebuttal of this article, published in dai11y 21/12/2021. My original coverage of the article is below, and has not been edited. — Smashing Magazine article by John C Barstow…. [Read More]

VR Game Gravitational Blends Puzzles With Real Accessibility Challenges Electric Monkeys Studio has built a VR game set in the future, in a scientific facility where gravitational technology is being discovered. The protagonist, Sebastian, uses a wheelchair, presenting an extra challenge in navigating the environment after an explosion destroys much of the facility, as you… [Read More]

WebAIM guidance on Alternative Text This guidance was given a fresh update in October 2021, so I’m reading it anew. “Although technology is getting better at recognizing what an image depicts, algorithms alone cannot understand what an image means within the context of the overall page. A maple leaf might represent Canada, or it might… [Read More]

The endless search for “here” in the unhelpful “click here” button Eric Bailey articulates all the reasons why you should stop using links and buttons with the text value “here” or “click here”. This is such a common mistake across the web and is a habit we need to break out of. Compare the following… [Read More]