Accessibility

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

Gesture-based VoiceOver on the iPhone and iPod touch

Apple has made the iPhone and iPod touch accessible to visually impaired people by shipping them with the new, gesture-based version of the VoiceOver screen reader.

Posted on October 6, 2009

Use the optgroup element to group select options

When grouping the options of a select element, you can use the optgroup element with a label attribute instead of faking the groups with option elements.

Posted on October 5, 2009

WebAIM screen reader user follow-up survey

Screen reader users are encouraged to participate in WebAIM’s updated screen reader user survey, intended to help accessible web developers make informed decisions.

Posted on September 30, 2009

Skip links need to be at least temporarily visible

When you add skip links to a site, do not hide them completely from sighted users.

Posted on September 29, 2009

Readable – another way of improving readability on the Web

The Readable bookmarklet, especially in combination with the Better Web Readability CSS framework, makes websites easier to scan and read.

Posted on September 25, 2009

Användbarhetsboken – a free online book on usability

If you can read Swedish, here’s an opportunity to read a good book on usability for free.

Posted on September 16, 2009

Opera adds support for the longdesc attribute

Very few visual browsers support the longdesc attribute, but now there are at least two: iCab and Opera.

Posted on September 14, 2009

Accessible colour combinations

If you had to pick a limited number of accessible colour combinations that you could let people choose from by means of a style switcher, what would they be, and why?

Posted on September 10, 2009

HTML 5 and the summary attribute

The current HTML 5 Working Draft lists the summary attribute as an obsolete but conforming feature and tells authors to provide table information to all users.

Posted on September 7, 2009

Make more web content readable with Readability

Like the content on a site but have a hard time reading it? Try the Readability bookmarklet.

Posted on August 25, 2009

IE 8 does not display alt text in a tooltip

Internet Explorer 8, unlike previous versions, behaves like other browsers and does not display alt text in a tooltip when you hover the cursor over an image.

Posted on August 17, 2009

Page zoom does not mean the end of flexibility

The fact that most browsers now default to zooming the entire page instead of just changing text size does not take away the need for flexibility in web design.

Posted on June 18, 2009

Accessibility improvements in Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Mac OS X 10.6 has plenty of accessibility improvements, several of which will be useful not only to people with disabilities. No mention of WAI-ARIA, though.

Posted on June 17, 2009

Do you think a WCAG 2.0 technique can be improved? Let the W3C know.

If you think a technique or other document related to WCAG 2.0 could be improved, you can let the WCAG Working Group know about it.

Posted on June 16, 2009

Using the Web with a refreshable Braille display

Roger Hudson has posted a video of Bruce Maguire using a refreshable Braille display to browse the Web.

Posted on June 11, 2009

Enabling keyboard navigation in Mac OS X Web browsers

A guide to enabling keyboard navigation, which most Mac OS X web browsers support but have disabled by default.

Posted on June 9, 2009

Help screen reader users by giving data tables a summary

To help users of non-visual browsers understand data tables, use the table element’s summary attribute to describe the tables’ structure, especially for complex tables.

Posted on June 5, 2009

Cufón and screen readers

Cufón is a potential replacement for static images or sIFR when you must use a specific typeface that is not widely available. However, it has some usability and accessibility issues.

Posted on May 28, 2009

Building accessible forms with WCAG 2.0

Examples, with references to relevant WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria, of how screen reader users can successfully interact with forms that use JavaScript.

Posted on May 21, 2009

Do not remove the outline from links and form controls

Do not use CSS to remove the visual outline most browsers put on elements that have keyboard focus, and do not use JavaScript to immediately remove focus.

Posted on May 14, 2009

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