The Automated Accessibility Coverage Report (PDF) Thanks to GDS colleague Anika Henke, who discovered this report via the “Accessibility Testing Coverage: Automation and Intelligent Guided Testing” talk at axe-con. According to the report, Deque’s accessibility testing engine axe-core finds 57.38% of accessibility issues, rather than the “widely accepted belief that automated accessibility testing only provides… [Read More]

Amazon Echo Show 8 extends the power of Alexa to people with disabilities An article from last November, reviewing the accessibility of Amazon’s Echo Show 8. It highlights a bunch of accessibility features I’d never considered the Echo devices to have: Like phones and tablets, it has a pinch-and-zoom feature to allow you to magnify… [Read More]

Android update adds scheduled texts and improves accessibility Whilst Android 12 will likely be released in September 2021, a first developer preview is out now. One accessibility improvement is that you will be able to make calls, set timers and play music from the lock screen, using Android’s ‘Assistant’. This will benefit those with mobility… [Read More]

ProPublica experiments with ultra-accessible plain language in stories about people with disabilities News organisation ProPublica ‘translated’ one of their articles into plain language, in an effort to be more accessible to people with intellectual/developmental disabilities. Here’s the original article: People with Developmental Disabilities Were Promised Help. Instead, They Face Delays and Denials. And here’s the… [Read More]

Form design: multiple inputs versus one input Blog post by Adam Silver, explaining why splitting inputs can be problematic. A technique often used for credit card numbers and bank sort-codes, I’ve often found such forms quite slick, but hadn’t considered some of their accessibility downsides: Multiple inputs mean users can’t easily paste information in, unless… [Read More]

I’ve seen a lot of social media hype around the improved accessibility of the new White House website. So I read a couple of articles to find out more: Under Trump, WhiteHouse.gov was a disaster. Biden’s team revamped it in 6 weeks This article looks at some of the new features of whitehouse.gov. There’s a… [Read More]

Hello! Welcome to your weekly frequent11y newsletter, brought to you by @ChrisBAshton (who has just returned from a week off work!): We begin with some special WCAG 3.0 coverage, in which I’ve read and summarised a two-parter by deque. Part 1: What to Expect From The First Public Working Draft of WCAG 3.0 WCAG 3.0… [Read More]

Hello! This week I thought I’d try something different, and bring you five different articles on screen readers. Let me know if you enjoy #WeekOfScreenReader and whether you’d like some more themed digests like this! What better place to start than with a nice, digestible history of screen readers? A Brief History of Screen Readers… [Read More]

Accessibility in tech improved in 2020, but more must be done A mammoth article highlighting the key accessibility improvements made by the 6 giants of tech: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. There’s a small conclusion at the end, briefly mentioning a few household names that have yet to fix fundamental issues in their… [Read More]

State-Switch Controls: The Infamous Case of the “Mute” Button An article exploring the design of ‘mute’ buttons on the iPhone ‘call’ screen, on Zoom, and on WebEx. Two of the three use fill colour alone to denote state: the universal microphone icon has a dash through it, regardless of what state you’re in, making it… [Read More]