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Purchasing Power Parity
Accessibility of content based on price and economics is not something I’ve covered often, so I’m glad to have come across this really interesting article.
Sophia Lucero writes about a trend she’s noticed in online courses and magazines: websites are beginning to charge different prices based on where in the world you’re visiting from. They generally charge less if you’re in, say, the Philippines, versus if you visit from the USA, on the basis that it’s a lot more difficult for someone from the former to raise the same amount of disposable income as someone from the latter. This is well explained by the Big Mac index.
Many independent creators that are big names in the frontend world are offering this, from Wes Bos and Kent Dodds to Sara Vieira and Julia Evans. Sophia notes that they all seem to have rolled out their own implementations, based on their own “specific, personal reasoning that differed from one another”. There’s a certain amount of secrecy into the underlying methodologies used by some, as they (understandably) want to avoid being pulled into an economics fight. As a guide, you could use the calculator by Jack McDade, or for a (paid) automated implementation, you could use Parity Bar.
The decision to roll out PPP is, for many, an altruistic decision, and relies on honesty, since it is fairly simple to spoof one’s location. However, it has actually increased revenue for the creators (50% in the case of Chris Ferdinandi), as the fact more people can afford it means there are higher sales.
WordPress Accessibility Day Returns November 2-3, 2022
Deborah Edwards-Oñoro tells us about a virtual, accessibility focussed conference in November. Full details over at wpaccessibility.day.
For a taste of what to expect from the day, check out the talks from 2020. It looks to be a good mix of beginner and advanced accessibility concepts, as well as technical and non-technical. There are some CMS/WordPress focussed talks, but a lot look quite generic, so this looks open and applicable to all.
You can sign up for email updates on the website. For now, pencil November 2nd and 3rd in your diary!
ScreenReader app
A project I came across recently was the ScreenReader app, which is a learning aid to help you to use VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android. It contains exercises to navigate by headings and links, and to select, copy and paste text.
The app is an initiative of the Appt Foundation. Its source code is available on GitHub under screenreader-android and screenreader-ios repositories.
Divs are bad!
An article by Manuel Matuzović, which he openly admits is a clickbait title! Manuel concedes that the <div> is useful for additional elements for styling, for structuring content when no other suitable element exists, and for when you need custom landmarks. He then lists the issues with using <div> incorrectly.
Using a <div> inside a <details> element, for example, can break how the element is supposed to render in browsers, and might cause screen readers to not recognise the <summary> element properly:
<details>
<div>
<summary>Show info</summary>
Hi, I'm the info!
</div>
</details>Manuel works through plenty of other common examples (such as <ul><li> markup) which should not have a <div> nested in between the elements. It’s quicker to say where it can be used, and that’s in definition lists. The following example is fine:
<dl>
<div>
<dt>Key:</dt>
<dd>Value</dd>
</div>
<div>
<dt>Key:</dt>
<dd>Value</dd>
</div>
</dl>Manuel recommends installing Deque’s HTML validator bookmarklet to validate your web pages. It works on both server-rendered and client-rendered pages.
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