Category Archives: ACCESSIBILITY

10 guidelines to improve your web accessibility

We put together a list of ten web accessibility guidelines that will guarantee access to your site to any person, in spite of their disabilities. There’s a quote by Tim Berners-Lee, Director of W3C and inventor of the World Wide Web, that says, “The power of the web is in its universality”. As people who make a living byContinueContinue reading “10 guidelines to improve your web accessibility”

Accessibility | Improvements to the next udpate are already planned

In both the Windows Anniversary and Creators Update, Microsoft has added many new enhancements to features across the operating system to improve accessibility for its customers who have low vision, are blind, have a partial hearing loss or deafness in either or both ears, live with physical disabilities, or need assistance reading text on theirContinueContinue reading “Accessibility | Improvements to the next udpate are already planned”

Accessibility and the Digital Service Standard | Digital Transformation Agency

… Accessibility has been a government priority for many years. The release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (or WCAG 2.0) set a new standard for accessibility. But for those of us who work in government, there is more to consider. Accessibility must go beyond the technical requirements. As I covered in myContinueContinue reading “Accessibility and the Digital Service Standard | Digital Transformation Agency”

Accessibility Testing: Checkers & Development Tools Review

Tools of the Trade In a different article, I outline the basics foundations of accessibility standards: “Understanding s508 & WCAG 2.0”. To further expand this, let’s look at various development tools to help author accessible content conformant to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) 2.0 standards. Getting Started For a primer or refresher on whatContinueContinue reading “Accessibility Testing: Checkers & Development Tools Review”

Web Accessibility Checklist

A beginner’s guide to web accessibility Landmarks ARIA Landmark Roles are helpful landmarks that can be used by AT to navigate a website. Note: When you validate html using landmark roles, you’ll receive a warning stating these roles are redundant. In HTML5, several of the landmark roles are implicit via the native structural element whichContinueContinue reading “Web Accessibility Checklist”

Microsoft Hosts Its First Accessibility Summit to Better Tech Access For Disabled

Microsoft India today hosted its first-ever Accessibility Summit in the country to enhance technology access for people with disabilities. The summit aimed at demonstrating the business value of accessible technology for organizations, the need for a collaborative effort as well as assessing policy’s role in creating an accessible India.Through a series of constructive sessions, theContinueContinue reading “Microsoft Hosts Its First Accessibility Summit to Better Tech Access For Disabled”

The Potential of IoT Technologies for People with Disabilities

While being able to dim your lights, lock your doors, and adjust the thermostat using voice commands or a simple interface on your smartphone may seem like convenient novelties to some, for disabled individuals these can be essential to maintaining a safe, healthy, enjoyable home life. For example, a quadriplegic who cannot physically open theirContinueContinue reading “The Potential of IoT Technologies for People with Disabilities”

Four Free Tools for Automated Accessibility Testing of Web Apps

Designing and developing for web accessibility has become a requirement of modern computing. Depending on the content and complexity of your project requirements, it can also be a very difficult pursuit. Two colleagues of mine have already written excellent articles exploring the need for and design of accessible web sites: Designing Accessible Software – BreakingContinueContinue reading “Four Free Tools for Automated Accessibility Testing of Web Apps”

Canada’s new accessibility laws should focus on employment, inclusive buildings, transport 

The priorities, which were laid out in a report and released by the federal government Monday, summarize eight months of consultations held with Canadians from coast to coast. Carla Qualtrough Qualtrough, the minister tasked with crafting laws to make Canada more accessible to people with disabilities, says employment will be a key focus of herContinueContinue reading “Canada’s new accessibility laws should focus on employment, inclusive buildings, transport “

The Effects of Parallax Scrolling on User Experience in Web Design

The Effects of Parallax Scrolling on User Experience in Web Design Parallax scrolling is becoming an increasingly popular strategy in web design. This scrolling technique creates the illusion of depth on a webpage by making the background images move slower than the foreground images. In addition to its ability to engage users with a website,ContinueContinue reading “The Effects of Parallax Scrolling on User Experience in Web Design”

The ability to control Windows 10 with your eyes is coming soon

Controlling your PC with only your eyes is something that’s set to be possible much sooner than you probably think. According to the Windows blog, the technology will be available in the latest Windows 10 Preview Build (162570). The technology comes from a partnership with Tobii, a Swedish company that specifically develops eye control technology.ContinueContinue reading “The ability to control Windows 10 with your eyes is coming soon”

Essential Color Tools for UX Designers

Essential Color Tools for UX Designers Color is one of the most powerful tools in the designer’s toolkit. At the same time, color is a tricky concept to master — with an infinite number of possible color combinations out there, it can be hard to decide what colors to use on your site or app. To makeContinueContinue reading “Essential Color Tools for UX Designers”

Slides: London Web Standards; Making SVG accessible

London Web Standards is an established and popular meetup for web professionals. The meetups cover a broad range of topics including design, development, UX and accessibility, and this month I had the opportunity to talk about SVG accessibility. The talk looked at SVG past, present, and future, and explored the benefits and challenges it bringsContinueContinue reading “Slides: London Web Standards; Making SVG accessible”

Accessibility for Visual Design

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As designers, we need to remember that the same is true of color and all visual abilities. It’s estimated that 4.5% of the global population experience color blindness (that’s 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women), 4% suffer from low vision (1 inContinueContinue reading “Accessibility for Visual Design”

Accessibility according to actual people with disabilities

“If you have a disability, what’s the hardest thing about browsing the web?” The answers to Safia Abdalla’s tweet are truly eye-opening and shows us what web accessibility should really be about.  In this article I’ll summarize and group the main topics that people bring up in the thread.But do click on the tweet andContinueContinue reading “Accessibility according to actual people with disabilities”

At this month’s WWDC, Apple unveiled refined accessibility tools

… …for all the focus on refinement, there also is a cavalcade of new stuff to be excited about. As it pertains to accessibility, some obvious highlights for me are the 10.5” iPad Pro and the corresponding iPad-centric enhancements in iOS 11. I’m also psyched for smaller niceties too, such as the ability to automatically enter Reader View in SafariContinueContinue reading “At this month’s WWDC, Apple unveiled refined accessibility tools”

Google Maps now lets users add wheelchair accessibility details for locations 

Back in December, Google finally added accessibility details to Maps. It was a long awaited addition, but an extremely welcome one for the more than three million people in the U.S. who require wheelchair accessibility. As we noted at the time, however, the available information still left a lot to be desired. Maps has currentlyContinueContinue reading “Google Maps now lets users add wheelchair accessibility details for locations “

The web is awesome and everyone should be able to read it.

These last months I’ve been improving my website accessibility so anyone can understand it. Here’s what I’ve learned: By anyone I mean any person that doesn’t use the internet like I do. Having empathy with the users is one of the things I’ve been learning on web development. You should give it a try asContinueContinue reading “The web is awesome and everyone should be able to read it.”

Microsoft app that tells the visually impaired what’s in front of them

This free app is helping the visually impaired  Thursday, 13 Jul 2017 | 8:39 AM ET | 01:36 Microsoft is putting its artificial intelligence technology to work to help the visually impaired. The company said on Wednesday that it’s releasing an iOS app called Seeing AI that uses an iPhone’s camera to tell people about objects in frontContinueContinue reading “Microsoft app that tells the visually impaired what’s in front of them”

Semantic HTML: The Unbearable Rightness of Being

This is the fourth post in a series on accessibility from Shopify’s UX team. We’re publishing posts every two weeks. Check out the introduction. Using valid, semantic HTML is one of the most impactful ways to make your site more accessible. Writing semantic HTML means using the HTML element with the most specific, correct meaningContinueContinue reading “Semantic HTML: The Unbearable Rightness of Being”

The a11y Monthly: get rid of your tables (or fix them) 

While the original intended use of HTML tables was tabular data, tables are also used as aids for page layout. This was especially true some years ago when browsers hardly supported CSS. Tables were necessary to overcome limitations in visual presentation. Today, there is much more flexibility in controlling page layout using CSS. Does itContinueContinue reading “The a11y Monthly: get rid of your tables (or fix them) “

Accessibility features in macOS and iOS that everyone should try

If you’re someone who doesn’t have any specific reasons to go there, you may have never explored the Accessibility settings on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. While it’s true that those settings are there primarily for people who have special physical needs to modify how a device’s interface works, the fact is, many people whoContinueContinue reading “Accessibility features in macOS and iOS that everyone should try”