Category: roundup

So many great articles around digital accessibility lately! Here are some (with author and quote/summary) which I thought were very useful.

• Link Targets and 3.2.5 by Adrian Roselli @aadrian.
  “Regardless of what accessibility conformance level you target, do not arbitrarily open links in a new window or tab. If you are required to do so anyway, inform users in text.”
• [ARIA] Roles and relationships by Sarah Higley @codingChaos.
  “even small mistakes in using these roles can take a user on a very bad trip”
• Squarespace, Wix, & Weebly: Accessibility Review by @TerrillThompson.
  “For accessibility, avoid Weebly. Both Squarespace and Wix are capable of creating accessible sites, but the user has to be looking to do so—it isn’t gonna happen by default.”
  • Follow-up post: Menus are not menus
• On custom select dropdowns:
  • Building an accessible autocomplete control by Adam Silver.
    “this is one of the hardest UI components I’ve ever had to make”
  • <select> your poison by Sarah Higley @codingChaos.
    “recreating the native behavior of a <select> element is impossible: its underlying semantics differ across platforms; its keyboard behavior is inconsistent; its mobile presentation and behavior is entirely different from desktop.”
  • For more, refer to my post, Accessible Custom Select Dropdowns
• Studies/statistics on current state of web accessibility:
  • Higher Ed in 4k Project by PopeTech.
    “…93.331% of pages had detectable WCAG violations. There were a total of 7,464,465 detectable errors found or 23.8 errors per page.”
  • Click-Away Pound Survey (2019) by @CAPsurvey.
    “In 2016, the survey found that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the barriers they found, taking with them an estimated spend of £11.75 billion. In 2019, that lost business, the ‘Click-Away Pound’, has grown to £17.1 billion.”
• My Priority of Methods for Labeling a Control by Adrian Roselli @aadrian.
  Adrian explains why explicit HTML label association is best.
• Operating System and Browser Accessibility Display Modes by Eric Bailey @ericwbailey.
  “Five such modes are Dark Mode, Increased Contrast Mode, Inverted Colors Mode, Reduced Motion Mode, and High Contrast Mode. Following is an explanation of each of these mode, who can benefit from it, how to enable it on your device or browser (if supported), and how to work with it in code.”
• Checking 3rd Party Vendors’ Product Accessibility by @vavroom via @knowbility.
  • “You may have difficulty finding a fully accessible solution. Do take the time to run some simple tests to get a better feel for the product. The more precise your questions and requirements about accessibility, the more likely you are to be able to determine if a product meets your needs. And the more protected you’ll be should the product fail to meet expectations.”
  • Also: Vendor Responsibilities for Accessibility by Jay Wyant @jay_wyant.
• Pixels vs. Relative Units in CSS: why it’s still a big deal by Kathleen McMahon @resource11.
  “Remember, users really do change their settings under the hood, and we should be maintaining users’ control over their own browsing experience. If you use relative CSS units for your typography styles, you can maintain the fidelity of your layouts without negatively impacting the needs of your users.”
• How accessible is the HTML video player? by Scott Vinkle @svinkle.
  “relying on native video players should be used with caution…I found most to have poor keyboard and screen reader support, which may lead to frustrated users”
• And finally, congrats @WebAIM on your 20-year anniversary! Thank you for your tremendous leadership in web accessibility.