Today's Web Design Update: groups.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/… Subscribe info: d.umn.edu/itss/training/online… #Accessibility #A11y #WebDesign

Featuring @siblingpastry, @TPGi, @stvfrnzl, @aardrian, @a11ytalks, @SteveFaulkner, @zeldman, @fastfinge, @chrisdavidmills, @adactio, @feather, @nethermind, @intopia, @dennisl, @hdv, @scottohara, @scottohara, @cory, @PK_info, @berry220, @gerrymcgovern, et al.

The European Accessibility Act will come into effect in June 2025, impacting businesses globally.
What does it mean for your business? Are you preparing?
#Accessibility #EURegulations #BusinessCompliance

bbeb.com/post/102j2d4/the-glob…

The Global Impact of the European Accessible Act (via Passle)

In June 2025, the European Accessibility Act will come into law. While the law is based in the EU, it will impact businesses in the UK, USA and any that...

^Passle

The Inaccessibility Cycle

#disability #ableism #accessibility

NV Access is very pleased to share the release of the NVDA 2024.1 Release Candidate. Unless any major issues are identified, this will be identical to the final release. We encourage all users to test the Release Candidate. Many updates including on-demand speech mode, native selection in Firefox, bulk actions in the add-on store and much more! Read the full details and download at: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-1r…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #Accessibility #A11y #ScreenReader #News #NewVersion #Release

Continuing this thread about Glidance/Glide.

Based on the demo on their site + FAQs + the recent interview, here are some questions that seem to have been answered.

1. The design takes into account rainy weather. It will work on rainy streets. No answer about snow yet.

2. The timeline is longer than I anticipated. Beta tests are happening this year and release will happen in 2025.

3. Preorders wil start this year to gage demand and satisfy funders.

#accessibility #blind #a11y

I am excited to be presenting an accessibility workshop for #InnovateUS. I will be focusing on taking a role-based approach for accessibility. Subject-matter experts (SME) have their role, but too often responsibilities in government are hardened and accessibility becomes someone else's responsibility. Taking a role-based approach can fix barriers earlier in the project's lifecycle.

innovate-us.org/creating-a-cul…

#accessibility #ARRM #authors #frontend #visualdesign #government #DigitalGovernment

The more I learn about Glidance, a system that purports to replace the cane, the more it seems to have taken all the criticisms of "smart canes" into account. It might be the first genuine high-tech navigation aid that could be beneficial, replacing the cane in most circumstances. I'm usually highly skeptical about these things because people just havent thought through the implications including ergonomics, weather conditions, etc

glidance.io

#accessibility #blind #a11y #mobility

Glidance | Glide your way to independence

A new era of independence for the visually impaired Glide is the first self-guided mobility aid designed to help individuals with sight loss navigate the

^Glidance

Reminder that support for the `headers` attribute in tables is pants:
• issues.chromium.org/issues/406…
• issues.chromium.org/issues/408…
• github.com/FreedomScientific/s…
• bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?i…

Even if `headers` worked, table navigation for spanned cells is still wonky.

So, you know, avoid spanning table cells and headers:
adrianroselli.com/2023/02/avoi…

#accessibility #a11y

Avoid Spanning Table Headers

Spanned table headers are not well supported across screen readers. While you can visually style these all sorts of ways to make the spanning clear, I am focusing on the programmatic outcomes.

^{Adrian Roselli}

Accessibility for Everyone: In two hours, come hear @laura talk about accessibility – register here now (it’s free/online):

lu.ma/BookGroup1

“Please join author Laura Kalbag, Guild host Lija Hogan, and other UX researchers for a fireside chat about the latest in accessibility and inclusive design topics … We’ll use her recent book, ‘Accessibility for Everyone’ from A Book Apart as a reference and starting point.”

#accessibility #a11y #event

Accessibility for Everyone: A Conversation with Author Laura Kalbag

Please join author Laura Kalbag, Guild host Lija Hogan, and other UX researchers for a fireside chat about the latest in accessibility and inclusive design topics. With the launch of WCAG 2.

^lu.ma

Look at this document and tell me what's wrong with it.

ai-weekly.ai/newsletter-03-12-…

#accessibility #a11y

AI-Weekly for Tuesday, March 12, 2024 - Volume 103 — AI-Weekly

The Week's News in Artificial Intelligence

^AI-Weekly

@nah @fvsch @sonny @matt But here’s the thing: Wayland would never have been made the default if, say, fonts didn’t render correctly. Not having a functional screen reader is as big an issue for people who rely on screen readers. So at some point, someone at Canonical decided that it didn’t matter that people who use screen readers would be excluded. And so they should be ashamed.

#a11y #canonical #wayland #orca #screenReaders #accessibility

I am currently working on #accessibility in #forgejo. And I discovered a problem with focus where it is not possible to navigate the page with "tab", a dropdown makes the focus skip to the end of the page and you end up in a loop.

Can someone recommend ways or tools to debug focus in webbrowsers? I have a hard time to see how the focus skips there. Any hints are welcome.

Thank you.

#WebAccessibility #WebDev #webDevelopment

So @gnome is removing the x11 session, leaving just the Wayland one.

If this goes out before Orca, the GNOME screen reader, is fixed to work on Wayland, it will mean that people who rely on screen readers will have no way to use one on GNOME. And thus on the major Linux distributions.

So I’m hoping the plan is that this change will not land until GNOME has a working screen reader.

#accessibility #a11y #gnome #linux #openSource #foss #wayland #x11 #orca peoplemaking.games/@ailepet/11…

People who use #ScreenReaders, imagine a feature on your instance where you can automatically hide any post that contains images/videos without alt text.

If you reply with an opinion and YOU PERSONALLY don't need alt text for accessibility reasons, I will probably block you.

#poll #ScreenReader #accessibility #a11y #blind

• It's a great idea (32%, 16 votes)
• No strong feelings (6%, 3 votes)
• It's a bad idea (6%, 3 votes)
• I don't use a screen reader (56%, 28 votes)

Emmanuele Bassi details the improvements for accessibility in GTK 4.14:

blog.gtk.org/2024/03/08/access…

#gtk #gtk4 #accessibility

Jakob Nielsen thinks accessibility has failed.

Jakob Nielsen thinks that generative AI will make my experience better.

I think Nielsen needs to think again.
tink.uk/nielsen-needs-to-think…

#accessibility #a11y #AI

One point I’m always at pains to make to my web design students is that accessibility isn’t an add-on to your design. You have to be as inclusive as possible from the outset.

Anyway, I thought this was a great article on designing for people with colour blindness:

smashingmagazine.com/2024/02/d…

#accessibility #webdesign

A Practical Guide To Designing For Colorblind People — Smashing Magazine

Color accessibility is more than just ticking boxes. Even with good contrast, some color palettes can make interfaces challenging for users. Here are some practical guidelines to ensure more inclusive design for colorblind people.

^{Smashing Magazine}

One thing the article omits is the fantastic accessibility in Firefox Developer Edition.

Perhaps these tools aren't well known — they're in the web inspector. It’s a great way to test your site.

#accessibility #webdesign #mozilla

I think this article, while somewhat radical and presumptuous, does have some good points, at least the ones I agree with.
I do think generative AI might have a potential of creating on-demand user interfaces to “personalize” #accessibility, but I think we forget about a human element here. Someone has to build such smarts and, as long as disabled people are deprioritized, whatever the reasons may be, the outcome will likely be not much different.

jakobnielsenphd.substack.com/p…

Accessibility Has Failed: Try Generative UI = Individualized UX

Traditional methods for accessibility have been tried for 30 years without substantially improving computer usability for disabled users.

^{Jakob Nielsen (Jakob Nielsen on UX)}