Accessibility

The Web should be made accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of any disabilities they might have.

Accessibility issues on Vancouver Olympics websites

Joe Clark takes a look at the accessibility (or rather the lack of it) of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics websites.

Posted on March 1, 2010

Remember the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)

ATAG addresses software that is used to create websites or manage the content of websites, but is unfortunately ignored by many creators of such software.

Posted on February 18, 2010

Specify a text colour for img elements

Make sure the alt text most browsers display when an image cannot be rendered is readable. If necessary, specify a text colour for images.

Posted on February 11, 2010

sIFR default CSS hides content from at least one screen reader

If you use the CSS that comes with sIFR, Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader will not read the replaced text. But there is a simple fix.

Posted on February 8, 2010

Unobtrusive JavaScript is not necessarily accessible JavaScript

There is no guarantee that a JavaScript that is unobtrusively implemented is also keyboard and screen reader accessible.

Posted on January 26, 2010

A call for consistent display of alt text across browsers

How browsers display alt text for missing images varies, so it would be nice to see this standardised by specifying the recommended behaviour in HTML 5.

Posted on January 20, 2010

Telling organisations that their websites are inaccessible

By contacting organisations with inaccessible websites about the problems you encounter, you increase the chances of them fixing their sites. W3C’s WAI has created a document intended to help you do this.

Posted on January 13, 2010

W3C HTML Accessibility Task Force

The W3C HTML Accessibility Task Force will help ensure that HTML 5 provides features to enable Web content to be accessible to people with disabilities.

Posted on January 12, 2010

If you must use a dropdown menu, make sure it’s keyboard friendly

Many dropdown/flyout/DHTML menus are not keyboard friendly. Next time you implement a dropdown menu, make sure it can be used without a mouse.

Posted on December 21, 2009

JAWS has a weird way of recognising data tables

The heuristics used by the JAWS screen reader to determine whether a table is used for layout or data are quite strange.

Posted on December 17, 2009

Use a background image in your CSS? Remember to specify a backup colour.

Whenever you place text on top of a background image, check if the text is readable if the image is missing and specify a background colour if necessary.

Posted on December 3, 2009

Do you find table summaries helpful?

Looking for input from screen reader users with regards to the usefulness of the summary attribute for data tables and the information provided in it.

Posted on November 17, 2009

Headings and document structure conclusions

There appears to be no single solution to heading structure in HTML that fits all situations, but as I see it there are two choices.

Posted on November 10, 2009

New accessibility overview on the W3C website

The new W3C website has a new and very good summary of the why, what, and how of Web accessibility.

Posted on November 3, 2009

Results from WebAIM’s screen October 2009 screen reader user survey

The results from WebAIM’s October 2009 screen reader user survey have been posted. Some results are expected while others can be a bit surprising.

Posted on November 2, 2009

Use the th element to specify row and column headers in data tables

When creating data tables in HTML, make sure to mark up the table structure properly, using the relevant elements and attributes available in HTML.

Posted on October 28, 2009

Design patterns and examples for colour blindness

We are Colorblind contains good and bad examples of designing for people who are colourblind along with design patterns, tips and tricks, and colour checking tools.

Posted on October 26, 2009

Lightboxes and keyboard accessibility

All Lightbox clones that I have tested have issues with keyboard accessibility, making it unnecessarily difficult or confusing to use them without a mouse.

Posted on October 20, 2009

Remove the outline from links on :active only

Completely removing the outline from links makes it very difficult for people who do not use a mouse to see where the keyboard focus is. But there is a better way.

Posted on October 13, 2009

Improve your keyboard accessibility

Many web designers and developers forget about or ignore keyboard-only users when building web sites. Here is some advice on what to avoid and what to do.

Posted on October 12, 2009

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