week11y issue 16

I’m going on holiday next week, so the next edition of week11y will likely be Monday 9th March!


Apple debuts ‘head pointer’ accessibility feature in macOS beta, a cursor that follows your eyes

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities

  • A Microsoft guide to ensuring your PowerPoint is accessible. A lot of the guidance is the same as it would be for the web: use descriptive links, don’t use colour alone to convey information, use a decent size text, provide alt text for images. Some more specialist advice includes ensuring the reading order of your slide is correct (screen readers will hear content in the order it was added, rather than the position it appears in the slide), and give each slide a unique title.

These are the standards for new government websites

  • A look at the United States Web Design System (USWDS) released in January, designed to improve the usability and accessibility of federal websites. It encourages focusing on user needs, following user experience guidance and using USWDS components, as per its maturity model. The system meets WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines and follows the 2% rule pioneered by GDS, supporting all major browsers and IE11. The codebase looks very similar to the GOV.UK Design System, with both using Nunjucks and BEM.

https://whocanuse.com

  • A little look at the “Who Can Use” tool, which takes a text color and background color and shows the accessibility of that combination for various vision types. For example, a #CF0000 red against a white background has AA compliance for regular vision, but AAA compliance for those with achromatomaly (partial colour blindness). What’s particularly useful is the “Simulation” next to each vision types/events, such as showing how your combination might look when viewed in direct sunlight. A worthy tool to have in your arsenal!

week11y is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things accessibility, curated by developer @ChrisBAshton. Each resource is summarised as a TLDR, in case you don’t have time to read the actual article. Readers are encouraged to read the linked articles and form their own conclusions.

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