Author Archives: dnw

Planning for Accessibility · An A List Apart Article

Incorporating accessibility from the beginning is almost always easier, more effective, and less expensive than making accessibility improvements as a separate project. In fact, building accessibility into your project and processes has a wealth of business benefits. If you’re looking to make the case for accessibility—to yourself, to coworkers, or to bosses and clients—you mightContinueContinue reading “Planning for Accessibility · An A List Apart Article”

Can Google Assistant and Voice Search Really Help Those Who Need it the Most ? – State of Digital

There are many voice activated devices to help us in the home and at work, including Google Assistant, Alexa from Amazon, Siri from Apple and Cortana from Microsoft. … Strategy Analytics predicted that in Q4 2017 that smart speakers would reach 12 million units world wide and so 24 million for all of 2017. Google unveiledContinueContinue reading “Can Google Assistant and Voice Search Really Help Those Who Need it the Most ? – State of Digital”

RFID Enables Hands-Free Transit Entrance for Vancouver Disabled

… The hands-free solution, known as the Universal Fare Gate Access Program, represents the world’s first transit authority system that offers hands-free automated access to disabled passengers, according to Erin Windross, TransLink’s planner for access transit planning. The RFID technology, which consists of UHF access-control cards and readers above fare gates, is provided by British Columbia RFID and Internet of ThingsContinueContinue reading “RFID Enables Hands-Free Transit Entrance for Vancouver Disabled”

Google disability support team

Google Accessibility (@googleaccess) 30/1/18, 8:33 am (1/2) We’re pleased to announce the launch of our first dedicated Google disability support team! Agents are available Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm PST through email and only in English language. Contact the team at disability-support-external@google.com. Curated by Lifekludger. Via Twitter

How Design for One Turns Into Design for All – The New York Times

An important article –  How Design for One Turns Into Design for All – The New York Times “When I talk to my design students about inclusive design, there is no snickering, not even a hint of doubt. They simply take it for granted that it’s part of a designer’s job today.” … Curated by LifekludgerContinueContinue reading “How Design for One Turns Into Design for All – The New York Times”

5 Common Misconceptions About Web Accessibility – 24 Accessibility

As someone brand new to learning about accessible design, I admit I had a few misconceptions about accessible web design. I’ve been a software developer for just over a year, and have been learning development for around three years. Though I still have tons more to learn, I’ve learned a fair amount about programming languages,ContinueContinue reading “5 Common Misconceptions About Web Accessibility – 24 Accessibility”

WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey #7 Results

… CAPTCHA remains by far the most problematic item reported by respondents. “Screens or parts of screens that change unexpectedly” has seen a significant increase over the years and is now reported as the 2nd most problematic item. This likely is due to the dynamic and complex nature of modern web pages and application. …ContinueContinue reading “WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey #7 Results”

What Does Inclusive Design Mean?

Why is accessibilty seen as an after-thought, or at worst an expense to help a handful of disadvantaged people? Have you ever tried using a website or app on your smartphone whilst riding a bus when the sun is streaming through the window? You probably have. How did that work out for you? … …theContinueContinue reading “What Does Inclusive Design Mean?”

Your Users Might Not be as Tech-Savvy as You Think

Thanks to their specialist skillsets and proximity to a given project, UX Designers are set apart from the majority of their target audience. As Jakob Nielsen explains, “one of usability’s most hard-earned lessons is that you are not the user. This is why it’s a disaster to guess at the users’ needs.” However, there’s anotherContinueContinue reading “Your Users Might Not be as Tech-Savvy as You Think”

UI Options 

UI OptionsObjectiveEasily add UI Options to your website. Add a simple separated-panel preferences editor to any page.DescriptionUI Options adds a simple preferences editor dialog with a set of six panels in a collapsible panel at the top of the page, accessible through a button in the upper right corner of the page. Curated by (Lifekludger)ContinueContinue reading “UI Options “

How Current Design Trends Impact Web Accessibility

“You are not your users.” “Involve people with disabilities in user testing.” “The average user does not exist.” “Design for the extremes, and the middle will take care of itself.” We hear these phrases all the time, yet a lot of people still believe that accessibility is mostly a quality assurance or developer’s responsibility, somethingContinueContinue reading “How Current Design Trends Impact Web Accessibility”

Best Color Contrast Checkers for Accessibility Testing

Whether you are designing, developing, testing or auditing, a contrast ratio checker is the best way to ensure your site or app passes accessibility criteria. As a designer you can use a simple value checker to plug in foreground and background color value as you use them. You could also use other tools to check final design designsContinueContinue reading “Best Color Contrast Checkers for Accessibility Testing”

Writing CSS with Accessibility in Mind

An introduction to web accessibility. Tips on how to improve the accessibility of your web sites and apps with CSS. … a lot of things have changed and CSS now gives us an incredible set of tools to style the web. We went from Verdana to Webfonts, from fixed widths to Responsive Web Design, from table-based layouts to Grid, andContinueContinue reading “Writing CSS with Accessibility in Mind”

HTML Source Order vs CSS Display Order

Last month in my post Source Order Matters I wrote about why we need to consider how the source order of the HTML of a page can affect users when the CSS re-orders the content visually. While I used a recipe as an analogue and cited WCAG conformance rules,I failed to provide specific examples. IContinueContinue reading “HTML Source Order vs CSS Display Order”

WebAIM: Accessible CSS

Introduction Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, allow you to modify characteristics of existing HTML elements. All web browsers have a built-in style sheet that defines the default styling for all elements. For instance, when the browser sees the tag, it knows to skip a line and start a new section because that’s what the built-inContinueContinue reading “WebAIM: Accessible CSS”

The Writer’s Guide to Making Accessible Web Content

Left-handed people are surrounded by items that aren’t designed for them. Scissors, golf clubs, desks, video game controllers: it’s a right-hander’s world, and it’s annoying that they don’t take your needs into account. But imagine moving from annoyed to frustrated, because a product is completely unusable. That’s what it feels like to use the InternetContinueContinue reading “The Writer’s Guide to Making Accessible Web Content”

Accessibility on Mac: The ultimate guide

The Mac stays one of essentially the most obtainable platforms lately, with options to serve all wishes. Computers will have to be for everybody, and that comes with the ones with bodily impairments, whether or not or not it’s to their sight, listening to, or motor serve as. Apple strives to create merchandise and instrumentContinueContinue reading “Accessibility on Mac: The ultimate guide”

How to Get a Virtual Home Button on iPhone X in 3 Simple Steps

There’s no Home button on the iPhone X. This means you need to relearn more than a dozen new gestures. Maybe you don’t like some of them. Maybe they’re a bit too awkward for you, at least for now. If you’re looking for a stop gap, you’ll find the answer in AssistiveTouch. Apple’s accessibility feature essentiallyContinueContinue reading “How to Get a Virtual Home Button on iPhone X in 3 Simple Steps”

Important things to in mind for Accessibility & Usability of an application

A mobile application is a medium where a user can get all the information related to your services and products. Here, UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) part plays an important role. It can help you to increase the acceptability of an app. Accordingly, it increases the usability of an application will inflate theContinueContinue reading “Important things to in mind for Accessibility & Usability of an application”

Accessible website design for users with disabilities lags far behind demand

“The internet is, in essence, broken,” said Todd Bankofier, the CEO of accessibility software company AudioEye. Last week the company announced a partnership with web design firm Dealer Inspire, which makes customer-facing sites for auto retailers, to implement AudioEye’s Ally Toolbar across their entire portfolio. The move “expands our reach immediately, making it much moreContinueContinue reading “Accessible website design for users with disabilities lags far behind demand”