Author: Dennis

Categories
alt roundup writing

Resources for Writing for Web Accessibility

UPDATED MARCH 2017

A large part of web accessibility is creating content which can be easily understood, and writing is often times an overlooked factor. Like coding a website, writing must account for a variety of user conditions and abilities. It’s tricky! Here are some great articles to help.

From 4 syllables

Some great advice from @Writing4Web. This was originally a 7-part series; the articles were restructured since.

More great resources

Techniques from WCAG 2.0

The word "inaccessible" with "in" crossed out by a pen
Categories
screenreader testing webaim yahoo

Learning How to Test with Screen Readers

Although accessibility checklists are important, testing for web accessibility requires more than that. Some testing requires tasks which can only be done by a human including testing with a screen reader. It’s best for a regular screen reader user to do the testing, but it’s also good for a developer or designer to do at least the basics (there was a big discussion on this last fall in Should Sighted Developers Use Screenreaders To Test Accessibility?).

Here are some good articles to help learn how to use a screen reader to test for web accessibility:

More from comments:

Categories
conference podcast twitter

Podcast #90: Articles, Events, Jobs, Twitter

Dennis and Ross discuss a variety of topics including recent articles, conferences and events, some accessibility-related job openings and resources, and updates on Accessible Twitter.

Download Web Axe Episode 90 (Articles, Events, Twitter)

Transcript of podcast 90

What’s New

Articles

Conferences & Events

Jobs

Accessible Twitter Updates

Categories
"fixing alt" alt

Fixing Alt – How one decides to build a web browser

This is the next blog in a series titled “Fixing Alt” where I supply alternative text to graphics on the web that badly need it.

This time it’s How one decides to build a web browser, an hilarious comic which makes fun of Google and takes a (deserved?) low blow at Internet Explorer 6. So here is the text version (a definition list seemed to work semantically):

How one decides to build a web browser

Simple illustration with three panels, one for each browser.

Mozilla Firefox
Two people at a computer. One with a pensive look on his face, and the other says “Let’s create a better Internet experience that everyone can use.”
Google Chrome
Three people at a computer. One says “How else can Google control the Internet?” Another says “Let’s make a web browser!”
Microsoft IE6
A man squatting over a laptop computer with his pants half down and saying “I’m ganna shit on the keyboard and see what happens.”
Categories
review

AccessibleTech Website Analysis; No Joke

Saw a new Google ad on Web Axe this past Friday, April 1, that I couldn’t help but click. After viewing the ad’s website briefly, I had slim hopes that this was yet another techie April Fool’s joke. Unfortunately, it was not. The website for AccessbileTech has many accessibility and usability issues when claiming to be accessibility experts/consultants. Let’s examine:

  • Skip nav link is visually unreadable (due to lack of contrast from background image).
  • Text links unclear; too many link styles; blue bullets appear to be links but not.
  • Headings not marked up as headings, such as Products & Services.
  • Mismatch in alternative text in News & Events heading image; alt says “events”.
  • The ordered list on the home page and on the Accessibility Goal page are not marked up as an ordered list; uses spans and break tags, yuck!
  • Hover states on links don’t have focus states.
  • Home tab is highlighted on all pages. Confusing, especially for those with cognitive disabilities.
  • Table layout, 5 levels of nesting. Nuff said.
  • No language declared (in HTML element).
  • CSS used for emphasis rather than markup (Company page) “.style1 {font-weight: bold}”
  • Small decorative image (203 by 141 pixels) on About Us page is almost 40K in file size! Needs web optimization to make smaller.
  • On home page News & Events section, audio and arrow icons are confusing, they appear to have functionality, but there’s no behavior attached to them.
  • Simple layout is fixed width; making flexible width would accommodate different screen resolutions.

Not funny. Agree?

Update

The owner of this website has contacted me. Most of the issues listed have been corrected.