Should browsers offer site-specific user preference controls? (yes!) Stefan Judis dreams about what could be made possible in browsers in this short opinion-piece. Users can set an OS-level or browser-level preference for light or dark mode, but there’s currently little support for configuring this on a per-site basis. What if you simply prefer a particular… [Read More]

Setting up an Accessibility Book Club Beverley Newing, Accessibility Lead at the Ministry of Justice Digital and Technology, describes how they set up an ‘Accessibility Book Club’. The club helped Beverley to create accountability, to ensure they were setting aside time to read and hear about the experiences of disabled people. The club can read… [Read More]

Linux Accessibility: an unmaintained Mess Devin Prater shares his experiences of trying to use Linux as a blind person. He reminisces about the days of Gnome 2 on Vinux, which was “accessible and easy to use” when used with Orca, the Linux GUI screen reader. Around 2015, Sonar came along, based on Antergos (Arch Linux)…. [Read More]

When to use target=”_blank” An old CSS-Tricks article by Chris Coyier, worth reading as a refresher. The default value for the target attribute, if unspecified, is “_self”, meaning links open within the same window. Using “_blank” forces links to open in a new window or tab. Users can opt in to opening in new tabs by… [Read More]

Lefty dentists and inclusive design An article about the barriers faced by left-handed dentists, in what the article author, Robert Stribley, calls “a failure of inclusive design”. Robert’s dentist immediately “became a better dentist” after graduating dental school, as they were able to set up their working environment to best suit them. Barriers occur in… [Read More]

Why we need CSS Speech Léonie Watson describes how all modern browsers allow you to “listen to content”, either natively or through some plugin/extension, and how developers currently have very little control over how content gets read. “In the same way an organisation chooses a logo… it stands to reason that they may also [wish… [Read More]

https://randoma11y.com/ A helpful utility for generating accessible color combinations. View the project on GitHub or follow it on Twitter.

Why you should never use px to set font-size in CSS Josh Collinsworth dispels the myth that it doesn’t matter whether you use px, em or rem for your font sizes. Whilst px stands for “pixels”, it no longer translates into physical pixels on the screen, as browsers scale up pixels on higher resolution screens…. [Read More]

Why ‘dark mode’ causes more accessibility issues than it solves H Locke, a UX designer, talks about astigmatism, which affects around 47% of the UK population. Actually Locke points out it affects most of the population, but the 47% figure is those that require corrective treatment, such as lenses or glasses. The condition affects the… [Read More]

4 Required Tests Before Shipping New Features Stephanie Eckles shares 4 quick checks you should make before pushing to production.