18 WAI-ARIA attributes that every web developer should know Use aria-label when you can’t use generic <label>, and aria-describedby for supplementary info, such as to associate error messages with their corresponding inputs. Use role=”heading” and aria-level=”2″ instead of <h2> if you can’t use the element (for SEO reasons, etc). Whenever there is a visible status… [Read More]

Walking On Egg Shells: Why Bosses Are Scared To Talk About Neurodiversity Article by psychologist Dr Nancy Doyle, highlighting that companies are increasingly attempting to improve their inclusivity, but are nervous about using the wrong language. “People with disabilities” vs “disabled people” represent two different models – the first being ‘people-first’ (we are people, not… [Read More]

Today is the International Day of People with Disabilities. This is an occasion “to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity.” It’s also a good opportunity to remind teams in the UK public sector of their responsibility… [Read More]

Accessibility drives aesthetics A recent article by UX designer, Alex Chen. It debunks the myth that accessible designs have to be ugly designs, giving real-world examples of websites (GOV.UK gets a mention here) and products (RX protein bar packaging) that are both accessible and aesthetically pleasing. That aside, Alex asserts that the two are not… [Read More]

Creating Online Environments That Work Well For Older Users An opinion piece by Barry Rueger, who for context is “well past sixty”. He makes several suggestions that are widely recognised as universally good practices, such as improving website load speed and ensuring good grammar and spelling. Others are more subjective: that older people prefer text… [Read More]

If it has audio, now it can have captions Google have created functionality for the Pixel 4 phone, which they’ve dubbed Live Caption. Like the auto caption feature on YouTube videos, this overlays text on your phone screen – when enabled – showing Google’s interpretation of the audio. The text overlay can be moved independently… [Read More]

When Things Go Wrong for Blind Users on Facebook, They Go Really Wrong An article highlighting the regularity of bugs and missing features encountered by screen reader users on the Facebook apps and site, with a strong message that there is an under-investment in accessibility development on Facebook and Instagram. A feature for adding colourful… [Read More]

Playing with state Article by Sarah Higley, exploring how best to denote the state of a Play/Pause video button for screen reader users. Most ‘toggle buttons’ for a binary state should have an aria-pressed attribute with value “on” or “off”; screen readers communicate this ‘state change’ more quickly than a change in property (such as… [Read More]

AI allows paralyzed person to ‘handwrite’ with his mind People who are ‘locked in’ with severe paralysis, unable to communicate physically, are slowly being able to communicate via technology. “Electrodes implanted in a part of the brain involved in motion” have enabled some paralysed patients to move a cursor and select onscreen letters using just… [Read More]

How to create content that works well with screen readers GOV.UK blog post by Léonie Watson, 2017. Screen readers read things in different ways: some will read out all punctuation, whereas others omit common punctuation and insert human-like pauses instead. Some words require different pronunciations depending on context (tying a “bow” vs taking a “bow”);… [Read More]