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Adrian Roselli
Pre-trained Trained Intelligent Agent VRML

All Posts Tagged: html

Web Development Advent Calendars for 2020

This is why you never go to the (locally- and independently-owned) grocery store on an empty stomach. Web developers around the world have celebrated Saturnalia solstice Isaac Newton’s birthday Christmas with advent calendars covering web-related topics. As a result, you may recognize some of the ones listed below. Every year…

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Tags: accessibility, css, design, html, internet, standards, UX

More Accessible Skeletons

I had this post queued up for Halloween because, come on, skeletons, and then life did its thing and now it is a … Thanksgiving post? Many skeleton patterns do a poor job presenting themselves to screen reader users in any meaningful way. They often stuff aria-busy into their widget,…

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

Under-Engineered Responsive Tables

I have written a bunch about responsive tables. Maybe too much. I keep trying to give developers the information they need to make informed decisions — ARIA attributes, screen reader & browser pairing results, bugs, and so on. I have spread things out over years of posts. I have filed…

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Tags: accessibility, html, pattern, standards, tables, WCAG

a11yTO Conf: CSS Display Properties versus HTML Semantics

Update In early July 2022 I re-tested these to see how the results shaped up after nearly two years and at least one promise: It’s Mid-2022 and Browsers (Mostly Safari) Still Break Accessibility via Display Properties If the title is not clear, one browser stands out in failing to address…

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Tags: accessibility, browser, css, html, slides

Dialog Focus in Screen Readers

Creating an accessible dialog on the web is trickier than it should be. Lack of support for the <dialog> element, the need for fundraisers to get inert into WebKit, inconsistent support for the ARIA dialog role, and other annoyances make them problematic. Scott O’Hara has spent a few years covering…

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Tags: accessibility, browser, html, usability, UX

VoiceOver on iOS 14 Supports Description Lists

3 January 2025: This post is out of date. Read my post Updated Brief Note on Description List Support for the most recent results of testing. The <dl> has existed since HTML+, or 1993, when it was called definition list. VoiceOver on iOS has existed since 2009, when it was…

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Tags: Apple, browser, html, Safari, standards

Sortable Table Column Mad Libs

Visually and functionally sortable column headers on tables are straightforward (I have a post on that coming soon). However, making them accessible can be a bit frustrating. To clarify, making them accessible to screen readers is frustrating. I wrote the post I promised in the opening: Sortable Table Columns There…

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Tags: accessibility, ARIA, html, pattern, standards, tables, usability, UX

Be Wary of doc-subtitle

In early March, Steve Faulkner shared this nugget for making sub-headings: 👉If you want to semantically identify a heading subtitle, look no further than role="doc-subtitle" w3.org/TR/dpub-aria-1.0/#doc-subtitle #HTML #ARIA #WebDev pic.twitter.com/uaHcVRp6oz Steve Faulkner (@stevefaulkner) March 7, 2020 On its surface it looks pretty handy. Handy enough that Chris Ferdinandi wrote about…

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Tags: accessibility, ARIA, browser, html, pattern, rant, standards

Disclosure Widgets

A disclosure widget is a simple control whose sole purpose is to hide or show stuff. Native HTML has one built in via the <details> and <summary> elements. Until recently, if you wanted to use it in modern browsers you needed to use a polyfill. In most cases it was…

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Tags: accessibility, ARIA, html, pattern, standards

Chrome 80/81 Bug: Accessible Name Calculation

The good:Chrome 80 rolled out on 19 February 2020, and with it came a pile of fixes for how elements with CSS display properties have their semantics exposed in the accessibility tree. These huge accessibility bug fixes featured prominently in my CSUN talk this year (starting at slide 36). The…

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Tags: accessibility, Chrome, html

CSUN 2020: CSS Display Properties versus HTML Semantics

While originally I was scheduled to attend CSUN to present two talks one talk, I ended up not attending (my father won A Major Award so I joined him instead). I gave my talk remotely in my scheduled slot (during my father’s award dinner). While I would have loved to…

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Tags: accessibility, ARIA, css, html, slides, standards

Stop Using ‘Drop-down’

TL;DR: Stop using the word drop-down. Instead choose a term that accurately describes the control you want. I have worked both with native platform developers and web developers. While control names might differ, if a control was functionally the same then it was not an issue. A TextBox, for example,…

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Tags: html, lingo, pattern, standards