Digital accessibility watch March - May 2021

Over and over in this technical watch, we tell you and prouve it, that magical accessibility overlays don't work.

These "magic solutions" bristle the hair of the A11y community, examples :

• https://www.accessibyebye.org/
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7az74/people-with-disabilities-say-this-ai-tool-is-making-the-web-worse-for-them
• https://uxdesign.cc/the-single-biggest-threat-to-the-future-of-digital-accessibility-d5a9e411f33f

On May 20, it was the GAAD, Global Awareness Accessibility Day, many things took place, here's a thing that seems nice, 10 short videos (<1 minute) on a11y : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTqm2yVMMUKWTr9XWdW5hJ9tk512Ow0SE

Last minute: 9th WebAim survey on screen reader users, do not hesitate to answer (even if you are only a tester or occasional user): https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey9/

Accessibility in laws, standards and guidelines #

• Explanation of future new WCAG 2.2 criteria in French: https://access42.net/wcag-2-2-explication-des-nouveaux-criteres-proposes

• The impacts of WCAG 2.2: https://makeitfable.com/article/wcag-2-2/

• Editor draft 05/05/2021 of "Aria in HTML": https://w3c.github.io/html-aria/

• Real-time communication and accessibility from W3c: https://www.w3.org/TR/raur/

• What is normative or not in WCAG: https://hiddedevries.nl/en/blog/2021-04-27-whats-normative-in-wcag

• Section title and WCAG compliance: https://www.tpgi.com/heading-off-confusion-when-do-headings-fail-wcag/

• In-depth reflection on improving WCAG to make them more operational, to read: https://level-level.com/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-wcag/

Feedback and accessibility #

• Smashing Magazine gives feedback not only with a11y in it, interesting: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/03/floating-labels-performance-lighthouse/

• How to make drop-down navigation menus accessible, to read: https://css-tricks.com/in-praise-of-the-unambiguous-click-menu/

• Temporary disability and vestibular disorders, nice: https://alistapart.com/article/accessibility-for-vestibular/

• Set up a button "show password" (in): https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2021/04/19/simple-things-are-complicated-making-a-show-password-option/

Accessibility strategy #

• Another demo which prouves that respecting the standard without user tests, well, it's not the right thing to do, to read: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/11/weaving-web-accessibility-usability/

• Use recent CSS to improve accessibility, read: https://moderncss.dev/modern-css-upgrades-to-improve-accessibility/

Test accessibility #

• Auto accessibility testing in React, cool: https://medium.com/czi-technology/automated-accessibility-testing-for-react-30c88cf892f4

• Points that an automatic audit does not perceive in pdf, to read https://www.microassist.com/digital-accessibility/pdf-accessibility-errors-automated-tools-miss/

• A web accessibility checklist and a testing tool: https://webflow.com/accessibility/checklist

• Reminder auto accessibility tools are not everything, you have to know how to use: https://chrisheilmann.medium.com/you-cant-automate-accessibility-testing-9f278ab6b7a

• Testing accessibility, large-scale methodology: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/04/bake-layers-accessibility-testing-process/

• Update 2021 of the Million study from Webaim, the top one million websites automatically tested: https://webaim.org/projects/million/lookup?homepage=orange.fr

• An automatic accessibility test tool that I did not know (in): https://www.accessi.org/

• Axe linter an extension for your Visual Studio Code: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=deque-systems.vscode-axe-linter

Technical accessibility points #

• Big work on sortable and accessible column headers: https://adrianroselli.com/2021/04/sortable-table-columns.html

• Understand the accessible DOM (accessible tree) the base: https://blogs.intuit.com/blog/2021/01/12/why-the-accessibility-tree-is-key-to-understanding-accessible-applications/

• Make it accessible to screen reader and voice recognition users, a point not often covered: https://www.sarasoueidan.com/blog/accessible-text-labels/

• Full point on aria-hidden, to read: https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2021/05/31/the-hidden-world-of-aria-hidden/

• The inert attribute to avoid taking focus, to read: https://css-tricks.com/focus-management-and-inert/

• Semantics and ARIA, 2 feature articles:

  • https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/practical-accessibility-1-semantics/
  • https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/practical-accessibility-2-names/

• Accessible toggle button, to know everything: https://kittygiraudel.com/2021/04/05/an-accessible-toggle/

• Page title and React, how to do it right: https://dev.to/steady5063/accessible-titles-in-react-210j

• Focus and accessibility indicator: https://craftcms.com/accessibility/designing-custom-focus-indicators

• Anticipate changes in WCAG: https://medium.com/intuit-design/designing-for-the-wcag-future-15e3435459a7

• Difference between aria-disabled and disabled: https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2021/03/15/re-upped-short-note-on-the-disabled-aria-disabled-attributes/

Mobile app #

• Introduction to a11y mobile apps, to begin with: https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/mobile-accessibility

• Accessibility and React Native, to know everything: https://medium.com/adapptor/accessibility-and-react-native-from-0-to-100-abde4cbaf56b

Ergonomics, UI & UX #

• Complete article on design systems, good or bad: https://www.usabilis.com/design-patterns-pour-la-composition-interfaces/

• Great feature article on accessible typography: https://cariefisher.com/a11y-content/

• A bit of a continuation of the previous one, readability and accessibility: https://medium.com/the-readability-group/typographic-accessibility-in-more-detail-4a11a0ef1cc2

• Design for Autism Spectrum Disorders: https://uxdesign.cc/inclusive-design-guide-7-principles-of-designing-for-the-autistic-community-1e6dcd4bae85

Resources #

• Tutorial on technical accessibility, to test: https://teachaccess.github.io/tutorial/

• Some good a11y tips for devs: https://www.hassellinclusion.com/blog/elearning-accessibility-poster/

• Accessibility of newsletters: https://mn.gov/mnit/media/blog/?id=38-472949

• The wealth of documents at W3c in terms of accessibility by theme, great: https://www.lireo.com/helpful-accessibility-resources-from-the-web-accessibility-initiative/

• First step for an accessible, educational website: https://convergeaccessibility.com/blog/

• Interesting accessible dev expert Q&A: https://knowbility.org/blog/2021/developer-techniques-for-screen-reader-accessibility

• Accessibility and e-learning poster, cool: https://www.hassellinclusion.com/blog/elearning-accessibility-poster/

Others #

• Live subtitles in chrome for audio and video: https://blog.google/products/chrome/live-caption-chrome/

• Lectures on a11y, full of topics, to see: https://a11ytalks.com/

• Accessibility myths debunked: https://ux.shopify.com/accessibility-is-more-than-a-technical-problem-ca6bb9dee8ce