Practical accessibility, part 2: Name (almost) everything It’s not enough to just use semantic markup to, say, create a list in HTML (the “what”), and mark it up with a role=”menu” (the “how it’s supposed to work”). We also often need to label the list, to explain “why” it’s there. For example, an aria-label=”Main menu”… [Read More]
Accessible SVGs Think you know SVGs? This article is worth a read – you just might learn something. SVGs have an implicit WAI-ARIA role of “graphics-document“. You should only change this if the SVG only contains an image; an attribute of role=”img” or role=”graphics-symbol” would be appropriate. Hide decorative SVGs from screen readers using aria-hidden=”true”… [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]
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]
This issue comes a month too late – I’m so sorry! Looks as though I overlooked it. So please enjoy this month’s issue – which is really last month’s issue – and don’t be too surprised to see month11y issue 20 arrive soon after that! Introducing Editoria11y: Accessibility Autocorrect The folks at Princeton University have… [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]
Overview of accessibility testing using DevTools (Microsoft) A guide by the Microsoft Edge DevTools team, though almost all of it applies to any modern browser. This mammoth article is a 23 minute read, and covers how to use DevTools for automated accessibility testing, by working through the accessibility ‘warnings’ in the console. It then describes… [Read More]
Blind Accessibility Tips blindaccessibilitytips.com is a resource for visually-impaired people to learn how to use assistive technology. It covers tasks like navigating the web, editing content in Microsoft Word, and using Windows File Explorer. The site is focused on Windows users using JAWS or NVDA. Though still clearly in early development, it’s a nice attempt… [Read More]
Accessibility Advocates Sign Open Letter Urging People Not To Use AccesiBe and Other Overlay Products Over 400 accessibility advocates and developers have signed an open letter calling on the industry to avoid using controversial “accessibility overlay products”, the most famous of which is accessiBe. These ‘widgets’ you can install on your website often claim to… [Read More]
Why your brain loves closed captioning 18% of the UK population regularly uses closed captioning, of which only 1 in 5 actually have hearing difficulties. Why? The article cites lots of reasons, such as helping with learning a new language. It can also be useful for people with autism and ADHD by providing “deeper context… [Read More]
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