Accessibility Awareness

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Helping you better understand web accessibility for people with disabilities. Created by @patrickmgarvin.bsky.social.

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People who are new to writing alt text sometimes feel they must describe every detail, and then get overwhelmed by this pressure. Imagine a large crowd at a football game: you are not expected to describe every single person in a crowd in detail. This would be nearly impossible.

People who want to make the web accessible need to understand the many different ways that people with disabilities use the web. This W3C resource offers a good introduction to how disabled people navigate the web, and barriers they commonly encounter. www.w3.org/WAI/people-u...

How People with Disabilities Use the Webwww.w3.org Introduces how people with disabilities, including people with age-related impairments, use the Web.

The Game Accessibility Guidelines have been put together by game studios, specialists and academics. While they are not an official set of standards or documents, they are a collection of tips and techniques to help developers make games more inclusive. gameaccessibilityguidelines.com

Game accessibility guidelines | A straightforward reference for inclusive game designgameaccessibilityguidelines.com

Color contrast is the difference in brightness between foreground and background colors. You can check your color contrasts with the @webaim Color Contrast Checker to determine if people with low vision can tell the colors apart and see your content. webaim.org/resources/co...

WebAIM: Contrast Checkerwebaim.org

When writing alt text, ask yourself if you would picture an approximation of the image if it was described to you over the phone using the alt text you've written. Doing that exercise can be a good way to determine if you're on the right track.

There is not one font that will be optimal for all users with dyslexia. Experts disagree on which fonts provide the best readability. But simplicity in typefaces is critical. Ideally, use fonts that are familiar or at least easily-parsed so that they quickly become familiar.

If you're new to captioning videos for your content, you might feel as if you don't know what you don't know. Meryl Evans' "Does Your Video Make These 6 Common Caption Mistakes?" is a great resource to help make your captions better. meryl.net/common-capti...

6 Common Caption Mistakes: Is Your Video Guilty of Any?meryl.net Your captioned video has standard captions that are accurate and in sync with the audio. It could be making one of these six mistakes.

When writing alt text, focus on what is actually in the image. Any relevant information that isn't describing the image itself should be in a caption below the image, not in the alt text. This includes photo credits, permissions, and copyright information.

A transcript is the only way to make video or audio content accessible to someone who is both deaf and blind. Transcripts can be converted into braille, to be read on a refreshable braille output device.

The difference between "full verbatim" and "clean verbatim" transcripts: Full verbatim captures spoken word exactly as stated, including filler words, stutters and false starts. Clean verbatim has words exactly as stated, but edits the filler words, repeated words and stutters.

Don’t stuff your alt text with keywords without context. If your alt text is just a collection of keywords, it will just sound like a gibberish string. It won’t describe what’s actually in the image, and won't help a blind user get a context or content of the image.

Don't use color alone to convey information. Marking required fields by only using colored labels won't help people who use screen readers or who can't distinguish colors. If using color, also add text like asterisks and/or "required." www.w3.org/WAI/tips/des...

Designing for Web Accessibility – Tips for Getting Startedwww.w3.org Summary

Beware of companies promising to make sites completely accessible, compliant, and immune from lawsuits with just a few lines of code. This just isn't possible. Disabled users have long said these tools don't actually help them, and can often make things worse.

For people just getting introduced to accessibility concepts, the number of resources can be overwhelming for people who don't know where to start. These 10 tips from Lireo Designs can be a good way to introduce your team to the basics. www.lireo.com/10-ways-to-i...

10 Ways to Improve Accessibility on Websites and Social Media - Lireo Designswww.lireo.com My 10 tips for making your website and social media more accessible, whether you're a blogger, photographer, writer, designer, or developer.

People often ask what accessibility considerations to keep in mind when creating data visualizations. For guidance and advice, check out Sarah L. Fossheim's list of 10 things to do (or not do) when designing accessible data visualizations. fossheim.io/writing/post...

An intro to designing accessible data visualizations by Sarah L. Fossheimfossheim.io 10 dos and don'ts for designing accessible data visualizations, including real-life examples and resources

When considering rainbow text, don't forget to consider readability and legibility. Text filled with rainbows can be difficult to read. Same with complex rainbow backgrounds. Putting each word or letter in a different color of the rainbow could force readers to work harder.

Text blocks that are justified are aligned to both left and right margins. The spaces between words can create "rivers of white" running down the page, which can make the text difficult to read for some people. Allow people the option to choose the styles that work for them.

Automatic captions make it difficult to watch videos because the viewer is forced to decipher misspelled or mistranslated words that appear in a string of text without any punctuation. These can be distracting and disorienting. Always edit your captions before publishing.

You don't necessarily need to say "image of" in your alt text for users to know it's an image. Screen readers will announce that it's an image. But it can help readers to specify if it's a hand-drawn image, Polaroid, infographic, screenshot, chart, map, diagram, or so on.

Avoid emoji icons in alt text. Emoji icons are a visual element, so it's counterintuitive to add them to non-visual content. You'll likely confuse people with messages that don't make sense. In alt text, use plain text, free of symbols, icons, or any weird special characters.

When using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, don't just make text bigger and bolder to make it a heading. That will work for sighted users, but screen reader users will miss that and just hear it as normal paragraph text. Use actual heading styles, like level 1 through 6.

Audio descriptions are necessary for making videos accessible. They narrate the crucial visual elements that would be necessary for understanding the plot without the ability to see the screen. They describe non-verbal cues like gestures, facial expressions, or eye contact.

Color can be a great way to distinguish data points in charts. But don't rely on color alone to convey information, as that can make things difficult for colorblind users. Using different shapes or patterns can help. Make sure patterns or textures are simple and not distracting.

The Xbox Accessibility Guidelines are a set of best practices compiled by industry experts, gamers, and disabled people. The guidelines have been written to help developers, designers, and testers make games more accessible to people with disabilities. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming...

Xbox Accessibility Guidelines - Microsoft Game Devlearn.microsoft.com Game development documentation for creating accessible games.

Avoid using emoji as bullet points in social media posts. An emoji has a coded description that gets read by screen readers, and thus could confuse users who think that's part of the content. If you can't use standard lists, use dashes for bullet points or add line breaks.

You might hear vendors or companies use terms like "ADA-compliant" or "ADA compliance." But when it comes to web accessibility, The Americans With Disabilities Act offers no measurable or testable criteria with which one can comply or not comply. adrianroselli.com/2022/03/ada-...

ADA Web Site Compliance Still Not a Thingadrianroselli.com Photo courtesy Steve Faulkner, taken outside the CSUNATC 2022 venue after we had chicken and rice, free from the food desert of the venue. Who has two thumbs and is not a lawyer? For years I have work...

If you put links or hashtags in your alt text, no one will be able to click or select the link or hashtag. It's just going to be read out loud. If you have a link or hashtag to share, that should go in the written part of your post or your tweet, but not the alt text.

How People with Disabilities Use the Webwww.w3.org Introduces how people with disabilities, including people with age-related impairments, use the Web.

Mathematical expressions can be difficult for users with cognitive disabilities. This doesn't mean you should avoid math entirely. It helps to explain math conceptually, with or without formulas. Conceptual explanations help readers understand the reasoning behind the math.