HTML5 gives us form field validation for free. The problem is that the default messages browsers provide are not always useful and typically do not work with assistive technology. I made an example on CodePen that uses an email field (type=”email”), is required (required), and uses a pattern to restrict…
The pun in the title is that some people pronounce the a11y numeronym as “alley”. That makes the full title sound like uncanny valley, the concept of human-looking things seeming almost, but not quite, human and therefore creepy. In accessibility, the same thing can happen. Developers can try so hard…
Underlines, the standard, built-in signifier of hyperlinks, the core feature of the web, are beautiful. This is objectively true. They are aesthetically one of the most delightful visual design elements ever created. They represent the ideal of a democratized information system. They are a frail monument to the worldwide reach…
Tobie Langel and I have launched a new site called a11y.reviews (spoken as Accessibility Reviews). Today if you want to identify if a tool, platform, service, resource, etc. is accessible you have to ask the broader community for its feedback. This does not scale. The goal of the site is…
In the post Toggling Animations On and Off Kirupa Chinnathambi does a great job of outlining the value in giving users a choice over seeing animations. Part of that is by honoring preferences users have already made in their operating systems to reduce the amount of animation they see. I…
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 I miss a few on day one, so add a comment or tweet me if you have…
Over the last few years more and more conferences have started to provide live captions during talks. This is awesome and inclusive and great for the olds like me. It excites me so much that I even sponsored the live captions at a conference a couple months ago. While I…
The slides from my talk at CodeDaze follow. If you cannot view the embed, visit them directly at SlideShare. Embedded Videos There were two videos in my talk. They will not play in the SlideShare embed, so I stuffed them below. Slide 56 The video demonstrates how a screen reader…
Dyslexia is not a black or white, on or off condition. Some with dyslexia report different challenges than others, ranging from typefaces to page layout to other factors. A few years ago I wrote Typefaces for Dyslexia, where I gathered some research suggesting that dedicated typefaces, on the whole, do…
TL;DR: When WordPress 5.0 is released, let’s keep the current editor on your site instead of allowing the new editor, Gutenberg, to replace it. Level Setting Some of you are familiar with WordPress beyond a platform that powers your site — you follow along with its changes and its direction.…
This year for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) I opted to follow my lead from last year and tweet a series of links to articles I have written. This time I limited it to articles I have written since the last GAAD. Just like last year, I am making it…
By now most of you have seen that four panel American Chopper meme. For those who cannot see, it whisked across Twitter as yet another undescribed image in a sea of inaccessible memes. Heck, for those of us whose data plan crapped out, it was just a missing block in…