Enhancing ARIA landmarks with aria-labelledby Article by Léonie Watson describing how to use aria-labelledby to distinguish between multiple navigational elements. Example: <nav role=”navigation” aria-labelledby=”firstLabel”><p>Choose an <span id=”firstLabel”>aisle</span> to browse</p><ul><li><a href=”fresh.html”>Fresh foods</a></li>…</ul>. How Does HTML Microdata Help With Accessibility? Scott Vinkle explains how pages marked up with microdata helps the ‘Reader Mode’ in browsers to find… [Read More]

Sa11y – accessibility quality assurance assistant An accessibility quality assurance tool geared towards content authors: Sa11y visually highlights common errors, with contextual information. Try out the demo. Text link Accessibilty: aria-label and title Deque article testing <a> links with various combinations of title and aria-label. The conclusion is that aria-label is the best supported attribute,… [Read More]

Why to Avoid Accessibility Overlay Toolbars, Pugins & Widgets Accessibility Works article warning against the installation of third-party overlays/widgets that promise to make your site accessible. These tools provide options for customising text size, providing magnifiers, and in some cases a built-in screen reader or alt-text generator. However, they cannot address the 70% of accessibility… [Read More]

This Is What Happened at a Captioned Virtual Reality Webinar Meryl K. Evans describes their experience of attending A11yVR meetup, which you can watch. Meryl is deaf and relies on the captions, but being in a VR environment raised several issues, such as other avatars standing in front of the captions. Technical issues such as… [Read More]

‘Show Me a Sign’ recounts the deaf experience for young readers MV Times article from last December, describing Ann Clare Le Zotte‘s new novel “Show me a Sign”, which is now available online. It is set in early 19th century Chilmark, Massachusetts – a town famous for its unusually high percentage of deaf citizens (one… [Read More]

Progressive React A surprisingly quick read despite its length: Houssein Djirdeh details several techniques for improving performance and accessibility of React applications. Use pre-rendered or server-side rendered (SSR) React, ideally hydrated in Node ‘streams’ rather than en-masse. Use streams for extracting critical CSS too. Various DevTools profilers help identify unnecessary component re-renders: override shouldComponentUpdate or… [Read More]

7 Predictions for Accessibility in 2020 and Beyond A UsableNet article that is full of optimism for the future: Jason Taylor predicts that a rise in a11y-related lawsuits will drive a more proactive approach to building accessible websites. Companies will no longer settle for agency-built sites or CMS templates that are inaccessible, and many will… [Read More]

Sony’s new Back Button Attachment brings customizable paddles to the DualShock 4 Sony are releasing a $30 attachment for the DualShock 4 controller which slots into the back and provides two extra large buttons. These can be mapped to any of the other buttons on the controller, and could be a (literal) game changer for… [Read More]

New in iOS 13 Accessibility – Voice Control and More Voice Control is a brand new feature on iOS that lets you interact with on-screen elements using your voice (like Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows). It overlays numbers or labels on clickable elements – users can then say things like “Tap 1” to click the first… [Read More]