Happy to provide a quote or two for this article on the OMB's new memo on accessibility. Accessibility statements are an important piece of CX. federalnewsnetwork.com/technol…

#accessibility #DigitalGov #Section508 #a11y

OMB issues digital accessibility guidelines, tells agencies to set up public feedback mechanism

The new White House directive looks to hold agencies more accountable for meeting digital accessibility requirements.

^{Justin Doubleday (Federal News Network)}

I'm really happy to see this OMB memo on digital #accessibility. So many game-changing initiatives that will have a government-wide positive impact on digital #a11y #DigitalGov #GovA11y

whitehouse.gov/omb/management/…

M-24-08 Strengthening Digital Accessibility and the Management of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act | OMB | The White House

View or download as a PDF. December 21, 2023 M-24-08 MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES FROM: Shalanda D.

^{The White House}

Nice, the European Union has officially stated that accessible overlays do not work. This isn't news to most of us, but it's always nice to have something official to point at!

commission.europa.eu/resources…

#a11y #accessibility #accessibledesign

Accessibility overlays

Web accessibility overlays are tools or technologies that aim to improve the accessibility of a website. However, claims that a website can be made fully compliant in an automated fashion are not realistic.

^{European Commission}

"Most importantly, tooltips should only provide descriptive and non-essential text, giving slightly more detailed text for active elements such as links and form controls. Ultimately, they provide expendable text which is already on the web page."

htmhell.dev/adventcalendar/202…

Great in-depth article about #tooltips by Jan Hellbusch. He knows what he's talking about, had the pleasure to be in one of his workshops and he's an absolute pro. 🤯

#HTML #CSS #JavaScript #accessibility #a11y #HTMHell

Design pattern for custom tooltips - HTMHell

A collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites.

^{Design pattern for custom tooltips - HTMHell}

Adobe has just added AltText & Extended Description to the IPTC fields supported by Lightroom Classic (I requested this feature in March 2022 & just got word that they've added it). This is potentially huge for anyone who uses LR to prep images for social media, e.g. Mastodon, or the Web.

@paul Could Ivory automatically read these fields & use them to populate the alt-text on image posts? (Read Ext. Desc. first, fallback to AltText?)

iptc.org/std/photometadata/spe…

#a11y #accessibility #photography

WTH @RocketChat why the hell are accessibility features like high contrast themes only available with "Enterprise"?! Do this with things that do not exclude people based on their disabilities.

What is being done there is straight up discrimination!

#accessibility

NVDA 2024.1 Beta 1 is now available for testing. Highlights include a new on-demand speech mode, the ability to drop speech modes from the NVDA+s command, a new "native selection" mode for Firefox, bulk actions in the add-on store & ability to review add-ons & more!

Note this release breaks add-on compatibility and only works on Windows 8.1 and newer.

Full info and Download from: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-1b…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Update #Beta #NewVersion #A11y #Accessibility #News

NVDA 2024.1beta1 available for testing

Beta1 of NVDA 2024.1 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome yo…

^{NV Access}

European Commission makes statement on accessibility overlays.

"Claims that a website can be made fully compliant without manual intervention are not realistic"

"overlay tools may make a website less accessible for some users"

commission.europa.eu/resources…

#eu #a11y #accessibility #overlays #fail

Accessibility overlays

Web accessibility overlays are tools or technologies that aim to improve the accessibility of a website. However, claims that a website can be made fully compliant in an automated fashion are not realistic.

^{European Commission}

Call to the global accessibility community. An overlay company won a 26,000 Euro judgment against accessibility consultancy Koena, a woman-owned 7 person shop run by @armonyaltinier. Koena was sued for sharing its opinion, as part of the global public conversation about the overlay company's one-line-of-code product.

I'm supporting Koena's fundraising campaign to raise money to appeal the judgment. Learn how you can help: lflegal.com/2021/11/overlay-le… #accessibility #a11y

This festive season give the gift of accessibility with an NV Access donation. Your support ensures we continue delivering life-changing technology to blind and visually impaired people globally.
Donations can be made here, nvaccess.org/support-us/#donat…

#Donate #Donation #NVDA #ScreenReader #Accessibility #Christmas

A disability advocate preserves his voice with iPhone

apple.com/ca/newsroom/2023/11/…
But wow, what a great video and a story!
#accessibility

A disability advocate preserves his voice with iPhone

For professor and disability advocate Tristram Ingham, Personal Voice provides a new type of reassurance.

^Apple

For the past couple of months I've been working on Pied (pied.mikeasoft.com), an application that makes it easy to use modern, natural sounding, text-to-speech voices on Linux. It does this by integrating the Piper neural text-to-speech engine with speech-dispatcher, so most existing software will work with it out of the box.

The first beta version is now available in the snap store: snapcraft.io/pied

And available as a Flatpak from pied.mikeasoft.com

(Other package formats will follow)

I'd appreciate any feedback if you're able to test it, thanks!

#TTS #accessibility #ScreenReader #linux #TextToSpeech

Hello Fediverse,

We are looking for Text-To-Speak (TTS) expertise to help or advise us on improving the default voice of the Linux desktop. 📣

Please reach out or boost

Thanks!

#Linux #tts #accessibility #a11y #GNOME #KDE #FreeSoftware #freedesktop #ml

I am just testing @Jami with a #screenreader on both linux desktop and android for #accessibility.
Initial setup is accessible on both the platforms.
Listing conversations I can't really say as I only have single contact.
Audio calling is working fine. I am impressed that the call setup took just a moment. On android controls like microphone toggle, speaker / earpiece toggle and hangup button are working fine.
I am unable to find out in call controls with the keyboard on linux.
On both desktop and android I can write messages.
On android I can read messages, find and execute additional actions in the popup menu.
On the desktop I can't read incoming and outgoing messages with a screen reader. I haven't discovered on how to copy them.

In conclusion comparing this to the tox chat the Jami is more accessible with a screen reader. Perhaps I will be able to figure out how to handle the calls with a keyboard shortcuts however the fact message text is not readable with a screen reader on desktop linux and perhaps other platforms sounds dissapointing. The idea and decentralized nature of this communication app sounds really amazing.

In-Process is out! Featuring some more NVDA 2023.3 goodies, a few other things we've been up to, a sneak peek at something in NVDA 2024.1 AND a HUGE walkthrough of Object Navigation. If you're not familiar with how object navigation works after that, I'll give you a refund on the cost of your In-Process subscription! 🤑: nvaccess.org/post/in-process-4…

#NVAccess #NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Blog #News #Tutorial #A11y #Accessibility

I have a question regarding a semantic HTML construct, and I'd like to know what the current consensus is (if there is one). So here goes:

Should navigation links be placed in an unordered list in a <nav>?

The spec doesn't recommend anything, but examples from MDN (developer.mozilla.org/en-US/do…) and WHATWG (html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage…) consistently use lists unless the contents are written in prose. Is this still the preference more broadly?

I have some other questions in this area. Safari removes list semantics if you remove the bullets (with exceptions, such as if the list is a child of "nav"), due to alleged "list-itis". At what point do lists become inappropriate? If I have a list of blog posts, and I format them as cards, with a heading, publish date, summary, and an image, is that too much content for each <li>?

Also, MDN and WHATWG point out not all links should be contained in navs (such as footer links), and "nav" should instead signal major blocks of navigation links. Would my prior example of a list of blog posts count as a major block? Should I enclose my list of blog posts in a nav? Does that extend to all section, category, and tag pages listing pages in that section/category/tag?

Feel free to respond if you have opinions, but keep it civil, and boosts are appreciated.

#HTML #semanticHTML #WebDev #website #accessibility #a11y

: The Navigation Section element - HTML: HyperText Markup Language | MDN

The

^{MDN Web Docs}

Are you involved in digital accessibility outside the United States? I welcome updates to my global law and policy page - and I'd especially like to hear how laws and policies are implemented outside the United States.

I'm getting ready for Part 2 of my digital #accessibility legal update coming up on December 7. Free and online. Global page is here: lflegal.com/global-law-and-pol… You can register for the webinar here: go.3playmedia.com/wbnr-11-30-2… #a11y

The #UPowerWAD project is an #EU project to empower disabled users to exercise their rights regarding the Web #accessibility directive and report issues regarding public sector websites: funka.com/en/projekt/upower-wa…

#a11y

Equipped with a fresh pot of tea and reading Keyboard accessibility myths and #WCAG by @graeme on the @TetraLogical blog:
tetralogical.com/blog/2023/11/…

#accessibility #a11y

Keyboard accessibility myths and WCAG - TetraLogical

Accessibility consultancy with a focus on inclusion. We can help you with knowledge, experience, strategy, assessments, and development.

^TetraLogical

So I wrote a blog post for the first time in 5 years, warning about hcaptcha's accessibility account. Long story short, they banned me from the accessibility account because I'm not blind. I am blind, but well, they seem to think not. Please boost, share, etc since this seriously affects me, and it's not ok at all. You can read the full blog post here: 4mt.me/hcaptchastory

#blind #hcaptcha #a11y #accessibility #boost