This week is a resources special, covering tools, training and libraries that have landed in my inbox recently!
Web Accessibility by Google
This is a free Udacity course, aimed at giving “advanced” skills to developers over a span of approximately 2 weeks. It covers developing for screen readers, semantic markup, and managing focus, with material by industry heavyweights such as Rob Dodson.
This course relates to an optional (paid) “Nanodegree program” that gives you a certification in being a “Front End Web Developer”.
Usability Testing with People with Disabilities
Knowbility.org – a nonprofit org based in Texas, serving globally – has an “AccessWorks database” of hundreds of people with disabilities including blindness, deafness, mobility impairments and cognitive disabilities.
You can hire these volunteers to help with usability testing your website. Knowbility works as the go-between, negotiating the quote with the business, educational institution, government agency, or nonprofit.
I have no experience of working with them, so can’t vouch for how well it works, but I like the idea; anything that makes recruiting real users easier seems like a good thing. It looks like the users get paid at least $75 per test.
Designing accessible services
This guidance by the UK Home Office covers best design practices for supporting users with a variety of disabilities, including anxiety, autism, deafness, dyslexia, low vision, mobility disabilities and blindness.
Each category is summarised in just a handful of key points, so it doesn’t take long to read them all.
The main thing I’d like to highlight are the PDF posters (1.2Mb), which cover the same information but in bright, clear visuals. These are well worth printing off and putting up around the office.
Highcharts for accessibility
Highcharts JS is a library for creating beautiful interactive charts. (Ex colleagues in BBC Visual Journalism, take note – I think you’ll like this!)
This accessibility focussed page showcases how a well-built Highcharts chart can be accessible. The first demo shows how you can dig out every piece of information using keyboard tabbing (not just mouse hovering).
The second demo shows screen reader support. If you just want a quick demonstration, there’s even a video showing how it works with screen readers (though the embed doesn’t seem to be working at time of writing, so I had to dig the YouTube URL out using developer tools).
I love the showcase of low-vision features, where things like bar charts have patterns on them rather than just colours, making charts accessible to colour-blind users.
There are even options for “sonification” – playing the chart back as sound which can be “highly effective for conveying trends” – as well as “tactile export” (which can be printed for low-vision users, using specialist hardware).
Age-positive image library launched to tackle negative stereotypes of later life
“The Centre for Ageing Better has launched a free library of positive and realistic images of people aged 50 and over.”
“The images, which depict older people in non-stereotypical ways, are available for download and free to use.”
The library is available here: https://ageingbetter.resourcespace.com/pages/home.php
This library launch follows a recent report “An old age problem?” which looked at depictions of later life across society. It found that stock image libraries often use unrealistically positive or negative depictions of people in later life, and recommended that in both words and pictures, the media should attempt to communicate a more diverse representation of what it means to be older without resorting to stereotype and caricature.
Another resource that may be useful is this suite of age-positive icons, also created by The Centre for Ageing Better.
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