Under-Engineered Patterns for #WCBUF
The slides for my talk are available as a
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WWW Project Turns 30
Thirty years ago, on April 30 1993, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced the World Wide Web project. While the web existed before then, this marks its release into the public domain. The six images represent Mosaic 1.0 viewing the original versions of The World Wide Web project, Technical…
No, APG’s Support Charts Are Not ‘Can I Use’ for ARIA
TL;DR: Despite claims, APG’s support charts are not ARIA support charts and they are not analogous to Can I Use. While brand new and likely to grow, their scope is still strictly APG patterns. Why I Say This I have opinions on the ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (APG). I am…
Don’t Override Screen Reader Pronunciation
When many devs, testers, and authors first start listening to content through a screen reader, they are surprised to hear dates, pricing, names, abbreviations, acronyms, etc. announced differently than they expect. With the best of intentions (or branding panic) they may seek to force screen readers to announce content as…
Exposing Field Errors
This post is about exposing field errors programmatically. I have already shared some opinions (such as a caution about displaying messages below fields or avoiding default browser field validation), but this post dives into using ARIA to convey them to screen reader users. With fields that produce error messages on…
CSS-only Widgets Are Inaccessible
Usually. I originally titled this InacCSS-onlyible. I even made this typographically, er, distinct image. Then I realized it was silly and will instead use the neologism in a talk so I can hear the groans IRL. Interactive widgets powered with only CSS are relatively common as people are playing with…
#AudioEye Will Get You Sued
Disclaimer: This post and the headline is my opinion. I provide verifiable facts throughout to inform that opinion. I am also not a lawyer, and this post does not constitute legal advice. The content reflects my genuinely held beliefs and opinions. My concern with AudioEye has consistently been with the…
ARIA vs HTML
Using ARIA instead of HTML is generally fine for content, layout, structure, and other static bits of a page. A <div role=”heading” aria-level=”1″> is the same as <h1> as far users and accessibility APIs are concerned. It is unlikely a user will ever notice the difference unless you use both…
Avoid Spanning Table Headers
Spanned table headers are not well supported across screen readers. While you can visually style these all sorts of ways to make the spanning clear, I am focusing on the programmatic outcomes. Which essentially means how they are exposed to screen reader users. This post uses only HTML <table>s. It…
Comparing Manual and Free Automated WCAG Reviews
Automated accessibility testing tools cannot test 100% of WCAG. This position is not controversial. Other than overlay vendors, no automated tool maker makes that claim. This is partly because WCAG is targeted at humans, not code, and so nuance and context apply. Free automated accessibility testing tools may have even…
AI-Generated Images from AI-Generated Prompts
As the world’s leading expert on a people-first approach to computer vision, I am dedicated to providing insights that enable designers, developers, and copywriters to create accessible images at the highest possible velocity. A velocity so high, in fact, you can almost hear the point whistling over their head, like…
JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver Braille Viewers
First, a very important qualifier — this does not represent how Braille display users experience the web. All this post does is show how to enable the Braille display emulators in JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver. This can be handy when testing issues reported by users and you do not have…