5 ms·

First time I've ever seen a comment about accessibility on the homepage of a mainstream product like this. As a blind developer this was just awesome, made me r

by ctoth 7y ago

First time I've ever seen a comment about accessibility on the homepage of a mainstream product like this. As a blind developer this was just awesome, made me really feel like somebody out there is listening. Thank you for making this

arp242 7y ago
Cheers. Right now a11y support is a bit like IE11 support: it should work, but it's tested only sporadically since it's rather time-consuming, and as a solo dev time is rather precious. I'm also not blind myself or even a a11y expert so there will probably be some issues I'm just unaware of. I would really appreciate feedback on it, so do get in touch if you have issues. Also, a11y support isn't just for "blind" or "disabled" users; it tends to make the page better for all users. This applies to everything really; for example while being able to tell coins apart by touch is critical for you, it's also pretty convenient for me at times, so this kind of coin design is better for everyone.
- SiVal 7y ago
  Also, a11y support isn't just for "blind" or "disabled" users; it tends to make the page better for all users. Yes! Although I'm not "officially" disabled, I'm "blind" to my screen when I'm driving (you'll be happy to know), I'm half-blind to a message that pops on my screen when I'm drying off from a shower (no glasses in the shower is my motto), I'm "mute" when surrounded by strangers on a train, my fingers can't operate a mouse or keyboard when I'm doing dishes, etc., etc. We're ALL disabled, and our circumstances change over very-short to very-long term as well. Having things designed with flexible interface options was one of the original goals of the web. Some of us remember before CSS, the publisher was supposed to specify semantics, and the user was supposed to specify presentation. I don't think we should go to that extreme, but I'd like to see our browsers, tools, and frameworks designed to make multi-UI flexibility easier and more common.
wnevets 7y ago
Does anyone know of a good resource for this?
- grovehaw 7y ago
  The UK government design system site is a good source for this kind of information [0]. [0] https://design-system.service.gov.uk https://design-system.service.gov.uk
- cglong 7y ago
  A lot of accessibility issues have to be taken on an individual basis, so good, publicly available resources tend to be hard to come by. The authoritative (albeit very terse) resource for web accessibility is WCAG: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/?versions=2.1&levels=aaa https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/?versions=2.1&levels=... One tool I'd suggest looking into when getting started is Accessibility Insights for Web. A team at Microsoft developed a free, OSS browser extension for automatically detecting most common accessibility issues on your site: https://accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/overview https://accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/overview Disclaimer: I do work at Microsoft, but my only affiliation with Accessibility Insights is as a happy customer :)
  - alwillis 7y ago
    I was trying out the beta and canary versions of the new Edge and installed Accessibility Insights and was pretty impressed. I immediately thought: how come none of the other browser vendors have something like this after all of this time?
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      Firefox has an accessibility inspector: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Accessibility_inspector https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Accessibility... Google develops Lighthouse, which, although an extension, I believe includes some a11y checks: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/ https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/ Similarly, Mozilla also promoted Webhint: https://webhint.io/ https://webhint.io/ (which is cross-browser) I'd also recommend Khan Academy's tota11y, which just works as a bookmarklet: https://khan.github.io/tota11y/ https://khan.github.io/tota11y/
- 7y ago

by ctoth 7y ago

arp242 7y ago

Cheers. Right now a11y support is a bit like IE11 support: it should work, but it's tested only sporadically since it's rather time-consuming, and as a solo dev time is rather precious. I'm also not blind myself or even a a11y expert so there will probably be some issues I'm just unaware of. I would really appreciate feedback on it, so do get in touch if you have issues. Also, a11y support isn't just for "blind" or "disabled" users; it tends to make the page better for all users. This applies to everything really; for example while being able to tell coins apart by touch is critical for you, it's also pretty convenient for me at times, so this kind of coin design is better for everyone.

SiVal 7y ago
Also, a11y support isn't just for "blind" or "disabled" users; it tends to make the page better for all users. Yes! Although I'm not "officially" disabled, I'm "blind" to my screen when I'm driving (you'll be happy to know), I'm half-blind to a message that pops on my screen when I'm drying off from a shower (no glasses in the shower is my motto), I'm "mute" when surrounded by strangers on a train, my fingers can't operate a mouse or keyboard when I'm doing dishes, etc., etc. We're ALL disabled, and our circumstances change over very-short to very-long term as well. Having things designed with flexible interface options was one of the original goals of the web. Some of us remember before CSS, the publisher was supposed to specify semantics, and the user was supposed to specify presentation. I don't think we should go to that extreme, but I'd like to see our browsers, tools, and frameworks designed to make multi-UI flexibility easier and more common.

wnevets 7y ago

Does anyone know of a good resource for this?

grovehaw 7y ago
The UK government design system site is a good source for this kind of information [0]. [0] https://design-system.service.gov.uk https://design-system.service.gov.uk
cglong 7y ago
A lot of accessibility issues have to be taken on an individual basis, so good, publicly available resources tend to be hard to come by. The authoritative (albeit very terse) resource for web accessibility is WCAG: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/?versions=2.1&levels=aaa https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/?versions=2.1&levels=... One tool I'd suggest looking into when getting started is Accessibility Insights for Web. A team at Microsoft developed a free, OSS browser extension for automatically detecting most common accessibility issues on your site: https://accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/overview https://accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/overview Disclaimer: I do work at Microsoft, but my only affiliation with Accessibility Insights is as a happy customer :)
- alwillis 7y ago
  I was trying out the beta and canary versions of the new Edge and installed Accessibility Insights and was pretty impressed. I immediately thought: how come none of the other browser vendors have something like this after all of this time?
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    Firefox has an accessibility inspector: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Accessibility_inspector https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Accessibility... Google develops Lighthouse, which, although an extension, I believe includes some a11y checks: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/ https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/ Similarly, Mozilla also promoted Webhint: https://webhint.io/ https://webhint.io/ (which is cross-browser) I'd also recommend Khan Academy's tota11y, which just works as a bookmarklet: https://khan.github.io/tota11y/ https://khan.github.io/tota11y/
7y ago