Monthly Archives: November 2013

Some shortcomings in Assistive Technology?

Categorized Under: Technology Published on Authored by Leave a comment

Earlier this week Aaron Gustafson turned me onto an accessibility feature in Google+. In your “Settings” Goggle+ gives you the option to turn on “Accessibility,” to “change the presentation of some pages to work better with screen readers and other assistive tools.”

A noble goal towards inclusivity. But one thing unfortunately sticks out for me, why is this even an option? And an option a user must opt into?

Turns out the reason wasn’t as misguided as I first thought. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still totally counterproductive — accommodating what they’ve already implemented to meet a goal that would be better served if Google strove for this goal up front? 1 But, I guess, effort is being made to provide people the support they might need to better their experience. My “complaint” should be taken with a grain of salt. It could be worse. But at the same time, it it should be much better. Read “Some shortcomings in Assistive Technology?” in its entirety

Regaining focus

Categorized Under: Adaptability, CSS Published on Authored by Leave a comment

During the latter part of this past week, I performed an accessibility “audit” for an organization I’ve done this type of work for in the past and unfortunately haven’t done much for in recent months. It feels good to be at it again.

And the web developer’s work I was evaluating was missing one of the most basic concepts of accessible web design. They removed the focus indicator from their links. I thought I’d share how I got around this potential show stopper with a little browser feature I’ve had to use possibly a couple other times for situations not quite as serious as this proved to be, but I think this will be worth the effort.

But before I drone on, it seems this needs to be said at least one more time. You really should avoid removing the focus indicator from web sites. Now I understand why one would do it. In some browsers the outline shows when you click on a link and that complicates certain aesthetic goals. And there are ways around this (largely).

But, as the link above demonstrates, this isn’t a new concern. This is merely me taking my sweet ass time at getting to a point. Which isn’t my main point, bear with me, I’ll get there. Revisiting practices that have since passed “pressing” relevancy can sometimes help your current processes. Take my “audit” this past week as a perfect example. Read “Regaining focus” in its entirety