CategoryAccessibility

November 23, 2017 — There are lots of different types of menu on the web. Creating inclusive experiences is a question of using the right menu patterns in the right places, with the right markup and behavior. Read more…

October 23, 2017 — The visual interface is an obvious place to begin digging into accessibility. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most common visual impairments, focusing on color-blindness to explain how you can make small changes to your workflow and products to ensure you’re not alienating users. Read more…

October 19, 2017 — With​ ​the​ ​appearance​ ​of​ ​voice​ ​user​ ​interfaces,​ ​AI​ ​and​ ​chatbots,​ ​what is​ ​the​ ​future​ ​of​ ​graphical​ ​user​ ​interfaces (GUIs)?​ ​Don’t​ ​worry: Despite​ ​some dark​ ​predictions​,​ ​GUIs​ ​will​ ​stay​ ​around​ ​for​ ​many​ ​years​ ​to​ ​come. Let​ ​me​ ​share​ ​my​ ​personal, humble predictions​ ​and​ ​introduce​ ​multi-modal​ ​interfaces as​ ​a​ ​more​ ​human​ ​way​ ​of​ ​communication​ ​between​ ​user​ ​and​ machine. The​ ​old​ ​wisdom​ ​that​ ​a​ ​picture​ ​is​ ​worth​ ​a​ ​thousand​ ​words​ ​​is​ ​still​ ​true​ ​today.​ ​Our​ ​brain​ ​is​ ​an incredible​ ​image​-​processing​ ​machine.​ ​We​ ​can​ ​understand​ ​complex​ ​information​ ​faster​ ​when we​ ​see​ ​it​ ​visually.​ ​According​ ​to​ ​studies,​ ​even​ ​when​ ​we​ ​talk​ ​with​ ​someone​ ​else,​ n​​onverbal communication​​ ​represents​ ​two third​s ​of​ ​the​ ​conversation.​ ​According​ ​to​ ​​other​ ​studies​​, ​we​ absorb most​ ​information​ ​from​ ​our​ ​sight​ ​(83%​ ​sight,​ ​11%​ ​hearing,​ ​3%​ ​smell,​ ​2%​ ​touch​ ​and​ ​1% taste).​ ​In​ ​short,​ ​our​ ​eyes​ ​are​ our ​primary​ ​sensors​. Read more…

August 7, 2017 — Using voice commands has become pretty ubiquitous nowadays, as more mobile phone users use voice assistants such as Siri and Cortana, and as devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home have been invading our living rooms. These systems are built with speech recognition software that allows their users to issue voice commands. Now, our web browsers will become familiar with to Web Speech API, which allows users to integrate voice data in web apps. Read more…

May 3, 2017 — Voice-based interfaces are becoming commonplace. Voice assistants such as Siri and Cortana have been around for a few years, but this past holiday season, voice-driven devices from Amazon and Google made their way into millions of homes. Recent analysis from VoiceLabs estimates that 24.5 million voice-driven devices will be shipped this year, almost four times as many as last year. As experience designers, we now have the opportunity to design voice experiences and interfaces! Read more…

October 18, 2016 — We might not realize it, but as developers, we build inaccessible websites all the time. It’s not for the lack of care or talent though — it’s a matter of doing things the wrong way. In our new book, Inclusive Design Patterns, Heydon Pickering explains how we can craft accessible interfaces without extra effort — and what front-end design patterns we can use to create inclusive experiences. Quality hardcover, 312 pages. Read more…

June 21, 2016 — According to Colour Blind Awareness 4.5% of the population are color-blind. If your audience is mostly male this increases to 8%. Designing for color-blind people can be easily forgotten because most designers aren’t color-blind. In this article I provide 13 tips to improve the experience for color-blind people – something which can often benefit people with normal vision too. There are many types of color blindness but it comes down to not seeing color clearly, getting colors mixed up, or not being able to differentiate between certain colors. Read more…

June 21, 2016 — According to Colour Blind Awareness 4.5% of the population are color-blind. If your audience is mostly male this increases to 8%. Designing for color-blind people can be easily forgotten because most designers aren’t color-blind. In this article I provide 13 tips to improve the experience for color-blind people – something which can often benefit people with normal vision too. There are many types of color blindness but it comes down to not seeing color clearly, getting colors mixed up, or not being able to differentiate between certain colors. Read more…

May 17, 2016 — lorem ipsum Read more…

December 12, 2015 — I’ve been a web developer for 15 years, but I’d never looked into accessibility. I didn’t know enough people with (serious) disabilities to properly understand the need for accessible applications and no customer has ever required me to know what ARIA is. But I got involved with accessibility anyway – and that’s the story I’d like to share with you today. At the Fronteers Conference in October 2014 I saw Heydon Pickering give a talk called “Getting nowhere with CSS best practices”. Among other things, he made a case for using WAI-ARIA attributes like aria-disabled="true" instead of classes like .is-disabled to express application state. It struck me then and there that I was missing out on a few well-prepared standards, simply because ARIA belongs to that accessibility space that I had no idea of. Read more…