Hidde de Vries’ short and to-the-point article between analytics and accessibility contains three important highlights: It is impossible to reliably measure “disability” through web analytics Even if it were, those numbers would rather be a measure for the quality of a site (e.g […]
#a11y (2/4)
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.
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Datenschutz-Transparenz für Sehbehinderte
datenschutz-notizen.de 
This blog post by the German privacy blog “Datenschutz-Notizen” poses more questions than it provides answers, but I find it noteworthy for bringing together three of my core interests: legal design, accessibility and privacy. The text refers to a court ruling from Italy, where the […]
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Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs
newrepublic.com 
At first sight, this article may not have much to do with accessibility or inclusive design. Yet, after reading it, I suddenly realized how even my own thinking, deliberately tuned to think in an inclusive, prejudice-free way wherever possible, has been biased by a preconception of something I do not fully understand. […]
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Championing Inclusive Research Through User Stories
answerlab.com 
When people ask me what I do as a UX researcher my answer is usually along the lines of “I watch people struggle with technology without judging them.” And I’ve watched hundreds of people struggle with technology.
In an article that neatly brings together UX […] -
Progressive Enhancement, the New Hotness™
gomakethings.com 
It’s 2022, and 36.8% of respondents (not a representative survey, but assuming the demographic of Sara Soueidan’s Twitter followers to be dominantly web developers: even more shocking) don’t know what Progressive Enhancement is. This short intro by Chris Ferdinandi, cheekily […]
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How many people are missing out on JavaScript enhancement?
gds.blog.gov.uk This is a 9 years old article. Yet, while the quantitative numbers may have shifted in one direction or the other, the qualitative statements stand unchanged: it cannot – and must not – be assumed that all JavaScript code is executed for every visitor of a website. […]
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Everyone has JavaScript, right?
kryogenix.org 
Stuart Langridge presents this simple, yet convincing flow chart to illustrates all the various things that may go wrong as users request a web site requiring JavaScript code. […]
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Molly Holzschlag called for more attention to the UNESCO’s ROAM principles, a United Nations policy framework for an internet for all: Rights, Openness, Accessibility to all, Multistakeholder participation.
Never once can I recall a discussion with any Web colleagues about The ROAM Principles. They are a framework for Internet (and #Web) universality and we need them. We're too fragmented and without unity and discourse, we will lose what's left of the idealism and hope born of Web.
— This Miss Molly 2022-02-19 […] -
This looks like a very interesting impulse for more inclusive UX research:
Fable released a tool called the Accessible Usability Scale , which we have made freely available. It is specifically meant for conducting research with assistive technology users. The AUS is a 10-item […]
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The New Requirements for WCAG 2.2 visionaustralia.org
While WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 are the current standards demanded by many legislative frameworks, work is well under way towards the next version, WCAG 2.2, which can also be expected to become the overall baseline at some point. Hence, this review of the drafted requirements is an interesting read. For UI […]
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No Accessibility Without Disabilities
yatil.net 
As with any fields of design, confirmation bias can stop us from seeing the reality. Eric Eggert points out how (in this field of design, too, one may add) only verifying solutions with real users – in this case people with disabilities – will lead to good results. […]
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Reflecting about adopting more technology lawriephipps.co.uk
Starting with an analogy to tech in orienteering sports, Lawrie Phipps looks at the excluding factor of the growing reliance of a certain stack of technology:
[…] practices in education have shifted, and we now have more technology as a default. That technology will have a […]
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How-to: Accessible heading structure
a11yproject.com 
Hands-down the most comprehensive treatment of semantic HTML heading structures, with special focus on accessibility, this How-to by Rian Rietveld answers close to any questions both beginners and advanced users may have. Side note, as it’s closely related: a very specific use case – the […]
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This is WCAG thisiswcag.com
“This is WCAG” is a community-driven effort (GitHub repo) to translate the WCAG criteria for accessible websites into plain english, actionable test statements:
It’s not a catch-all list for things which you feel should be accessibility failures but aren’t. This […]
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#a11y friends: pattern or anti-pattern?
<p id="k">Kicker</p>
<!-- some other cruft, e.g. img -->
<h2 id="h" aria-labelledby="k h">Heading</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum …</p>
instead of:
<h2>Kicker</h2>
<!-- ... -->
<h3>Heading</h3>
<p>Lorem ipsum …</p>
Any major cons? Thanks!Joschi Kuphal and some of his contacts discuss the optimal HTML semantics for a “kicker” (the little pre-heading on top of a headline, sometimes also called “eyebrow”; “Dachzeile” in German) from an accessibility perspective. Some very interesting nuggets and […]
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No matter how thoroughly a website is checked for accessibility by its creators, content editors play an important role in keeping it that way. Two little tools assist editors in their work, alerting them if content added through the CMS breaks certain accessibility principles. As a key building block in an inclusive publishing strategy, I look at the options and provide a turnkey solution for Kirby. -
Accessibility for People with Astigmatism
essentialaccessibility.com 
While high contrast is important for accessibility, this article is a good reminder why overdoing it is not a good idea:
There is a myth about white text over black backgrounds being the best color contrast combination for accessibility, but in reality, white text on black backgrounds […]
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Why dark mode isn’t as accessible as you might think
codeenigma.com 
“Is dark mode impacting your users”, Maygen Jacques asks in this article about some less-considered aspects of designing for “dark mode” — specifically the impact of fuzzy vision from white text on black background for users with astigmatism:
Let’s […]
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SourceData visualization cares disproportionately far too much about designing for colorblindness relative to other disabilities that are more common (visual impairments included).
— Frank ⌁ (@FrankElavsky) January 18, 2021
(A thread on disability, race, and patriarchy in data visualization.)In this Twitter thread, Frank Elavsky directs attention to a neglected aspect of common data viz accessibility discussions. -
Skipping skip links vasilis.nl
Such a refreshing take by Vasilis van Gemert: why do we make people "skip" over navigation links placed at the beginning of a page instead of putting them to the end and offer a "jump to navigation" skiplink? -
Minimum Viable Basic Human Decency exple.tive.org (via archive.org)
In this 2016 post, Mike Hoye presents a “Minimum Viable Set of User Stories” as a baseline of what software needs to enable to qualify as an MVP. It includes items such as User changes gender User is managing an addiction User is not always, and/or or not reliably, connected to the […]
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Let's do a quick #a11y review of the first website for each voting category for @AWWWARDS' best of 2020.
This Twitter thread by Eric Bailey points at an issue that the inclusive design community is well aware of, but that is ignored at large by the audiences of these “Best Websites of …” competitions and top-lists: A lot of (I’d go as far as to say: the majority of) websites celebrated by design agencies and decorated with “design awards” are lacking even the most basic consideration of accessibility. Eric is not doing thorough a11y audits, just some quick and improvised testing of keyboard accessibility (focus styles), colour contrast etc. – these are issues even a junior web developer could notice within a few minutes. […]
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Terence Eden tells the story of a young woman who, forced by circumstances, has to use a public website using a tiny gaming device’s browser. And it works. Because designers did their job:
The PSP’s web browser is – charitably – pathetic. It is slow, frequently runs out of […]
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