Posts tagged with ‘accessibility’

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In this post, I'll break down a real job advert and point out the things that concern me, in the hope it will help you to avoid taking on an accessibility role which is an impossible task, and likely detrimental to your health!

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I've developed a weird fascination with challenging language models, thinking up edge-case questions or scenarios to really work out if it can do what is being claimed, or whether it's just reasonably convincing on the surface.

Most language models are useful, but usually, they aren't that great once you drift outside of the realms of common knowledge and into nuanced territory.

So, since the launch of axe Assistant, I've spent a few days testing it out! This post documents my findings!

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W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, released a new draft of the WAI-ARIA 1.3 specification on 23 January 2024.

If you're not familiar with it, WAI stands for the Web Accessibility Initiative, and ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications.

It's a set of standards created to improve the accessibility of the products we build for the web, and it includes details about HTML attributes you can use to make content better for assistive technology. Some common ones you might have come across are aria-label, aria-live, and aria-describedby.

With the new draft of 1.3, we can get a bit of an idea as to what is coming, and how we can prepare for implementing and testing these features.

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Many organisations seem to view accessibility through a narrow lens. They do not recognise the breadth and depth of expertise that is required to create a well rounded accessibility role.

We had a similar situation 10 to 15 years ago, when start-ups were constantly trying to hire a single person that could do visual design, user experience (UX) design and software development.

This results in bloated job adverts hunting for somebody who likely does not exist in the job market. A mythical creature. A legend. Their reputation transcends the entire industry, yet nobody has managed to find a real one. Hence the term 'unicorn'.

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Web Chat relies on real time information and notifications, so you're going to need to use several features of Aria (Accessible Rich Internet Applications).

In this post, I'm going to cover in detail which of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) you're going to need to consider, and some examples of how you can use advanced attributes to give screen reader users the best possible experience.

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In this post, I just want to talk through what alt text is, why it matters, and how to avoid some common mistakes!

I know alt text posts are common, but I feel compelled to write it given that it's 2023, and I still see a lot of the same issues I've been seeing for years.

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After much anticipation and several delayed release dates, we eventually got the elusive Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 on 5 October 2023.

For those who build websites, digital services or mobile applications, or if you just care about making the internet more accessible in general, then this is big news!

So, lets have a look at what all the fuss is about!

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I recently wrote a blog post called European Accessibility Act: What you need to know and it created a bit of a stir, and a really interesting question came up around Article 32, which is all about transitional measures.

Now, you might be thinking, 'Transitional what?' So let's dive into it together and try to make sense of it.

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The European Accessibility Act and its impact on the private sector.

Learn the differences between the EAA, EU Accessibility Directive, Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, and EN 301 549, and discover top tips to prepare your business for compliance with the EAA.

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The term ‘microservice’ is becoming more and more popular when you look across the Digital landscape of a lot of big organisations.

Several Government departments, and several large organisations I've spoken to recently, are all looking at this approach; because, if executed well, it saves time and money, and they create consistency for users.

However, as more and more organisations try to leverage microservices, the pitfalls of accessibility are perhaps not being fully considered.