Craig Abbott wrote about the term “best practice” today. Thanks to posting his thoughts on Mastodon, I had time to kick my brain into gear …| Eric Eggert
I frequently see the word “help” used in accessibility, and I don’t like it. This is certainly a personal gripe, but I want to share my …| Eric Eggert
Auf der Seite barrieren-gutachten.de hat die wundervolle Casey Kreer Gutachten zum Stand der Barrierefreiheit in Deutschland erstmals …| Eric Eggert
The deadline of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) is near (June 28 is just 20 days away as I write this), and you just realized that your website or apps will not meet the requirements by then. Maybe you have just heard of it for the first time, or you might have tried to meet the requirements, but you’re not there yet. If you have believed that there is an additional transition period, that is not true. The transition period basically started when the EAA got approved by the European Pa...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
Steve Faulkner tagged me in this chain letter/interview style post, and I foolishly agreed in advance to respond. So here we are 😂 Why did …| Eric Eggert
Last weekend, I launchedWAI A Day, the daily random WAI resource fun and information. I added some things: A web page lists the URLs now together with the dates they have been picked for. This meant I had to give the page a history of all previously generated URLs. In the first version of the page, it only served as a random generator of a WAI URL and also, basically, only as an API – returning just the URL as a text string. So every time I accessed the URL, the response was different. To c...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
When I worked for W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative, we often discussed ways to spread the good word of our resources better. One idea …| Eric Eggert
In accessibility, “focusable” UI elements are represented by two separate yet equally important concepts: the elements who can be focused sequentially and those who can only receive focus programmatically. These are their stories. Dun-Dun While working for a client the other day, I found that Polypane[^ Affiliate link.], which is excellent in locating accessibility issues, showed elements with tabindex="-1" as focusable in the Focus Order section of the Outline tool. I contacted Kilian to...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
Just to preemptively state it: I appreciate what the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG) is trying to do with the “In Brief” sections in WCAG’s Understanding documents. My criticism is about the execution of the information. In addition, this is not a plea to change it. I think the WG is very set on its approach and I learned it’s almost impossible to make it reconsider, so I don’t even want to bother trying. This is mostly documentation for myself. Table of Contents What ...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
On Mastodon, Steve Faulkner shared a link to a GitHub discussion around the A, AA, and AAA levels of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). In it, the question is asked what makes a Success Criterion (SC) A, AA, or AAA. Basically, the question is what criteria are used to decide the level for any specific Criterion. The “Understanding Levels of Conformance” section in the Understanding documents explains which considerations contributed to the decision for each criterion (paraphrase...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
Accessibility audits are the bread and butter of every accessibility consultancy. It’s an easy to package product that clients have learned to ask for and buy. They have expectations on the deliverables and the form of an audit. Audits are usually also thorough, following established international guidelines (usually the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Note: I think this article applies to all kinds of accessibility audits, whether they are called “review” or “check” or “au...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
The Web Content Accessibility Guideline’s (WCAG) Success Criterion 1.4.11 Non-Text Contrast is one of the harder to understand requirements. Here’s a deep-dive into the details of it, including practical examples, concerning only its “User Interface Components” section. Because, of course, this SC has multiple sections: 1.4.11 Non-Text Contrast (Understanding) (Level AA) The visual presentation of the following have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 against adjacent color(s): User Inte...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
In our tech-focused society, there is this ever present notion that “accessibility will be solved by some technology”. But it won’t. Making things accessible is a fundamentally human challenge that needs human solutions in human contexts. I wrote about automated testing before. Support Eric’s independent work I'm a web accessibility professional who cares deeply about inclusion and an open web for everyone. I work with Axess Lab as an accessibility specialist. Previously, I worked wit...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
In the last couple of weeks, I had some encounters that made me think about the state of ableism. Turns out that despite a lot of slow but meaningful progress, the world overall is still pretty much ableist. This is not news for anyone who is disabled, of course, and it shouldn’t be for anyone who works in the field of accessibility. Support Eric’s independent work I'm a web accessibility professional who cares deeply about inclusion and an open web for everyone. I work with Axess Lab as ...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
Accessibility, especially on the web but also elsewhere, is a complicated combination of people with different roles working together. At any point during the creation of a web page, a blog post, its design, sourcing of images, or writing, issues can creep in. As accessibility people, we often look at the end product and say “this is not accessible” (often meaning “this does not meet the minimum standards set out by WCAG”). And yes, it is always difficult to make everything 100% corre...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
After the yearly theme of 2022 spilled over into 2023, it’s time for a new theme for 2024: “The Year of Focus on Focus”. (See the previous post for some context on yearly themes.) The Year of Intent in 2022 worked out very well. I felt better and more intentional. Unfortunately, it lost all its power over 2023. Extending the theme this way was unintentional, which basically set the whole year up for failure from a yearly theme/north star perspective. I never really caught up with anythi...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
In a stunning press release, Level Access has revealed that it plans to buy accessibility overlay company UserWay for about $99 Million. For those who are unaware, accessibility overlays are JavaScripts that claim to fix accessibility issues automagically. They claim to use “AI” to analyze the site and then apply accessibility fixes on the fly while the user is using the website. Of course, it is common knowledge that automated tools for finding accessibility issues can only find a limit...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
I’m not a good “retro” person. I always want to move on to the next thing. But reflecting over the past achievements is a good habit, so let’s do it. This year was very different from last year. I did not bike a single kilometer, which feels super bad, and if I have one personal goal for 2024, it’s getting back on the bike again. That said, we did rent a car to find hiking trails and hiked quite a bit during the summer. So not all is lost. I also built many more Lego sets, so many i...| Eric Eggert (@yatil) on web accessibility and more.
