#a11y (1/4)
The numeronym “a11y” stands for digital accessibility. My interest is not primarily technical accessibility, but the overall mindset, processes and practices of designing an inclusive and universally useful digital future.
-
Design that excludes some cannot be "usable". Here, I collect my preferred resources on specific (web) design tasks, with a strong focus on accessibility.
-
Playbook for universal design – Universal design methods for more inclusive solutions
universaldesignguide.com 
An interesting collection of workshop methods that add a layer of universal design and inclusion. Published by the Technical University of Denmark’s innovation hub “DTU Skylab”, it provides resources to pick from:
This Universal Design Playbook was created with the […]
-
European Accessibility Act: What you need to know
craigabbott.co.uk 
The European Accessibility Act is new legislation which was brought in by the European Union (EU) in 2019 with the aim to make sure that products and services are more accessible. It goal is mainly to help people with disabilities, but it will make things better for everybody! Somehow […]
-
Giving a damn about accessibility
accessibility.uxdesign.cc 
This "candid and practical handbook for designers", penned by (link: https://sheribyrnehaber.com/ text: Sheri Byrne-Haber) is a refreshingly broad and actionable take on advocating for the accessibility mindset for practitioners in digital design, with valuable impulses for managers as well. -
Just normal web things.
heather-buchel.com 
When advocating for web accessibility, the formal requirements of the WCAG and other frameworks often take center stage. In “Just normal web things” by Heather Buchel, she (while acknowledging the overlap with formal a11y requirements) advocates for an even more basic layer of minimal […]
-
Helsinki Design System
hds.hel.fi 
The Helsinki Design System is a good example of a design system at scale, that is built not only around a consistent, but an accessible brand as well:
The central digital experience resource of Helsinki Design Language. Guidelines, design assets and component libraries for building a […]
-
A rare gem: an observational study validating the comprehensibility of five different forms of gender-neutral German text.
-
The Potentially Dangerous Non-Accessibility Of Cookie Notices
smashingmagazine.com 
Nobody likes cookie consent modals. But if you are not able to "design them away" by technical solutions, they should at least be fully accessible. -
The Performance Inequality Gap
infrequently.org 
This concept of a “Performance Inequality Gap” brings together so many of my perspectives – from #a11y to #nonuse to inequality as one of the main concerns of the sociologist:
As long as we continue to build only for wealthy users, the dream of a web for everyone will […]
-
The Dangers of Elite Projection
humantransit.org 
Jarrett Walker describes “Elite projection” as “the belief, among relatively fortunate and influential people, that what those people find convenient or attractive is good for the society as a whole”. Walker talks about this concept from an urban planning perspective, yet […]
-
With great interest, I discovered the comprehensive guide "Centering Accessibility in Data Visualization" by Urban Institute: it approaches the topic from general considerations on the role of #a11y in process and artifact, diving all the way into specific examples showcasing how things should be done in an inclusive way.
-
This is inclusive design in action: while some users may have set a permanent preference to disable motion, enabling a simple switch for a motion-heavy website is a great feature. -
Charts.css
chartscss.org 
Charts.css is a modern CSS framework. It uses CSS utility classes to style HTML elements as charts.
A brilliant idea: Charts.css turns semantically marked-up data tables into visualizations using various types of graphs, and all with pure CSS. This makes for lighter code […] -
Mandated by law under certain circumstances, but always good practice and a sign of inclusive thinking, accessibility statements (and placing them in a navigation scheme) may sometimes be considered merely a compliance chore rather than a subject of good design themselves. In an article on the Deque blog, Patrick Sturdivant highlights a personal perspective on how important a part of UX such statement can be.
-
My Grandma is Not a Cyborg
futuress.org 
The story of early fighter planes designed for an idealized body type leading to about 90% of accidents due to operational issues is well known to anybody who ever attended a university class in usability, ergonomics, or “human factors”. Sinem Görücü tells a similar tale through her […]
-
Joschi Kuphal: #Unicode #LinkedIn #assistive
linkedin.com 
“Formatting” social media posts by using special unicode characters (that, for example, look like bold text but aren’t) is one of the most common ways to create completely inaccessible social media posts. Joschi Kuphal’s screencast demonstrates the problem:
Most […]
-
The Optional Chaining Operator, 'Modern' Browsers, and My Mom
blog.jim-nielsen.com 
These are the kind of stories that would deserve so much more space in education and practice of technologists:
The real-life impact of our technical decisions really hit home to me once again: my Mom had trouble volunteering and participating in her local community because somebody […]
-
Accessibility is systemic
adactio.com 
Jeremy Keith making the case for promoting accessibility on a system level:
Imagine someone who’s an expert at accessibility: they know all the details of WCAG and ARIA. Now put that person into an organisation that doesn’t prioritise accessibility. They’re going to have a hard […]
-
Different brains are beautiful because they think differently on a whole other level.
What an intro for an article about UX for neurodiverse users! Different brains are beautiful indeed. This article by Ashlea McKay starts from some key facts about ASD and then builds a […] -
This must be the most thorough walk-through on accessible navigation patterns on the interwebs?
-
Why your website should work without Javascript
endtimes.dev 
For some reason, the myth that users without JavaScript don't exist, refuses to die. So thank you to the author of this comprehensive collection of both statistics (1% of millions is still a lot of people!) and – more importantly – all the other reasons that may, even temporarily, turn web users into "users with no JavaScript". -
This quick reference to the WCAG 2.1 standard is a handy tool for quickly looking up requirements for specific web design tasks:
A customizable quick reference to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 requirements (success criteria) and techniques.
-
How to write user stories for accessibility tetralogical.com
Transforming accessibility requirements (as e.g. derived from WCAG or other norms) into bite-size user stories makes them more tangible, and enable easier implementation. -
This is a brilliant reference project on the process and design behind creating accessible data visualizations.
-
This article by Sophie Clifton-Tucker presents a whole range of considerations how to better consider varying cultural norms in design. It illustrates the difference between internationalization (i18n) as a "pre-launch" design phase task, and the "post-launch" localization (l10n), but most importantly provides an even broader perspective in calling for culturally aware design.
-
Blind Accessible Comics
spinweaveandcut.com 
My interest in the accessibility of information visualisations occasionally leads me into the rather niche topic of accessible comics. **Comics and graphic novels share a lot of the accessibility challenges information visualisations have** (content that is by definition first and foremost visual), hence the approaches to solving the challenge could cross-pollinate.
capito.eu 
urban.org 
uxmastery.com 
web.dev 
w3.org 
medium.com 
prototypr.io 