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Adrian Roselli
SaaS Monetization Library SME

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Brief Note on Dismissing Selects and Listboxen

Native controls can be different from their roled-up ARIA equivalents in a variety of ways. For example, an expanded native HTML <select> on mobile behaves differently when the dismiss gesture is used than when the same gesture is used with an expanded ARIA listbox. Using Android with TalkBack, a down-then-left…

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Tags: ARIA, html, mobile, touch, usability, UX

What Does X% of Issues Mean?

I ran a highly scientific and well-scoped Twitter poll (yes, sarcasm) to ask a question that has been in the back of my head for some time: When you see a claim that an automated accessibility testing tool finds X% of issues, what do you believe the word ‘issues’ means…

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Tags: accessibility, rant, standards

It’s Mid-2022 and Browsers (Mostly Safari) Still Break Accessibility via Display Properties

It was late 2020 when I last tested how browsers use CSS display properties to break the semantics of elements. I had been waiting for Safari to fix how it handles display: contents for four years now, and was excited when the announcement came in June. Then I started testing…

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Tags: accessibility, browser, Chrome, css, Firefox, html, Safari, tables

Use Legend and Fieldset

It’s 2022 and people are still afraid to use <fieldset> and <legend>. I understand the layout challenges can be frustrating, but swapping to an ARIA group role will result in a more inaccessible experience. A Solution Try this: <fieldset> <legend>Choose</legend> <div aria-hidden=”true”>Choose</div> […] </fieldset> legend:not(:focus):not(:active) { position: absolute; overflow: hidden;…

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Tags: accessibility, ARIA, html, standards

Internet Explorer Still Does Not Go Away Today

At the start of 2016 I wrote Internet Explorer Does Not Go Away Today because back then IE up to version 11 was being retired. But not Internet Explorer 11. I asked an AI (Neural Blender) to give me a picture of the Internet Explorer logo on fire. It’s almost…

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Tags: browser, internet, Internet Explorer, rant, standards

Keyboard-Only Scrolling Areas

I have spent a few years banging on about ensuring scrolling areas on a page are accessible to keyboard-only users. This is partly because the term “keyboard” maps to other input types that we distill to “keyboard” for ease of reference (speech input, sip-and-puff, on-screen keyboards, scanning software, etc.). When…

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Tags: accessibility, browser, Edge, Firefox, Safari, usability, UX

The Performative A11yship of #GAAD

For context on the title, working backward from the end, GAAD is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Its purpose, as explained at accessibility.day, is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different disabilities. A11yship is a play on the numeronym for accessibility (a11y) and the…

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Tags: accessibility, rant

24×24 Pixel Cursor Bookmarklet

The proposed WCAG version 2.2 has gone through a bunch of revisions since I covered the first draft in 2020. One new success criterion that persisted is 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) at Level AA (its name changed from “Pointer Target Spacing”). For background, WCAG 2.1 introduced 2.5.5 Target Size, mandating…

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Tags: accessibility, browser, standards, WCAG

A “Best viewed with…” Gag

I made some pointless things again. The First One See the Pen Best viewed in… by Adrian Roselli (@aardrian) on CodePen. A spinning box for each word is not exactly a compelling interface element, I admit, but I based it off this old tweet that was sitting around in a…

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Tags: browser, css, html

Under-Engineered Multi-Selects

Others in this sorta-series: Under-Engineered Custom Radio Buttons and Checkboxen Under-Engineered Toggles Under-Engineered Toggles Too Under-Engineered Text Boxen Under-Engineered Responsive Tables Under-Engineered Select Menus Under-Engineered Dependency Questions This post is not about <select multiple> nor a bunch of <div>s roled-up into a listbox with aria-multiselectable. Both the APG examples and…

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Tags: accessibility, css, html, pattern, usability, UX

Brief Note on Buttons, Enter, and Space

Keyboard interaction note for just one control from the entire panoply of HTML controls: A native <button> fires on key down when that key is Enter. If you hold down the Enter key, it continues to fire for as long you hold Enter (or something crashes). A native <button> fires…

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Tags: browser, html, pattern, UX

My Cease & Desist from AudioEye

On Tuesday April 5, 2022, a FedEx driver dropped off an overnight envelope from Manhattan. It contained a three page Cease & Desist letter from Cozen O’Connor, the law firm representing AudioEye, Inc. On Thursday April 14, 2022, I received a follow-up letter by the same delivery method. I scanned…

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Tags: accessibility, overlay