Browsers each provide built-in video players for the <video> element. Nearly four years ago Scott Vinkle wrote How accessible is the HTML video player?, where he compared these to one video player product. I decided it was time to test for myself. I structured my test and reporting a bit…
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…
Yeah. Another one. Let’s recap: In 2012 I asked that we get back to using HTML tables for tabular data in my post It’s OK to Use Tables, In November I argued that we need to avoid ARIA grid patterns for tables in Hey, It’s Still OK to Use Tables,…
Perhaps a testament to how little I might value GitHub contributions. GitHub profile pages are, to many, the de facto place to quickly judge the value of a developer. The contributions chart is an at-a-glance visual indicator of that value. I disagree completely with the notion of the chart (or…
Painfully slow demonstration of the example table resizing and different media queries kicking in. After writing (again) that it is ok to use tables, and after providing quick examples of responsive tables, I received questions about why I used some of the code I did. I am going to attempt…
Sometimes we fail to consider how browser features can jack up our interfaces. This is neither good nor bad, but we do need to account for it. My argument here is simple. Avoid putting important actionable or informational text exclusively below form fields. This includes labels, hints, and error messages.…
During a recent consultation on a mobile project, I broached the topic of gestures that are used by assistive technology on various devices. I gathered links to resources for my client and figured I’d share them here as well. Apple has gathered together the gestures used by VoiceOver on iOS…
This is, to some extent, a response to the article at Usability Geek titled Making A Case For The Desktop Hamburger Menu (which I had the Wayback Machine capture because I have learned my lesson). I left a comment on the article, but it motivated me to write something on…
Codepen demos showing a page zoomed and a page that has disabled zoom on mobile. A handy feature of mobile browsers is the ability to zoom into a page with a simple gesture. A less handy feature is the ability to override that. Ultimately this is bad for users. Sadly,…
Net Magazine asked followers on Twitter to submit any web design myths they wanted busted: Got a web design myth you want busted? Let us know and we'll print the best tweets in the mag!— net magazine (@netmag) September 16, 2015 I took this to mean web development, not just…
I didn’t want pizza anyway. Plenty of sites have covered the news from Google that many users have wanted to hear for some time now — that those giant overlays on sites that prompt you to download an app will now result in a search ranking penalty. Many of the…