I just so love semantic HTML and all the awesome things we get out of using HTML elements, all for freeeee! New-to-me in this short, sweet little piece: <meter>

We need to start thinking critically about things that we perceive as wholesome.

This is an amazing, much-needed dose of #realtalk on how often, designers and developers rely one “empathy-building” exercises as a way to avoid having to actually deal with disabled people. As a person who has occasionally recommended empathy exercises before, this was an important reminder of how much…

WebAIM Analysis of 1 Million Web Pages

The big #a11y news going around is this analysis of a million web pages, done by WebAIM, called “damning” and “demoralizing” by some accessibility experts. Conversely, they found that websites with ARIA labels were more likely, not less, to have a11y issues. How is this so? Implementing accessibility with an eye on compliance rather than (or in spite of) usability can end up making your site more complex, and more prone to errors. Still, it’s a worthwhile endeavor, and this is an important (and interesting, for my data-nerds) dispatch on the state of the web accessibility world.

Each week, I…

But while researchers have tried hard to address some of the most egregious issues, there’s one group of people they have overlooked: those with disabilities. Take self-driving cars. Their algorithms rely on training data to learn what pedestrians look like so the vehicles won’t run them over. If the training data doesn’t include people in wheelchairs, the technology could put those people in life-threatening danger.

Remember that horrifying survey of whom a self-driving car should choose to hit, in a real-life implementation of the trolly problem? …

Crossing the Border While Disabled, How We Get To Next

“Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many of my nondisabled American friends often blithely talk about leaving the country and settling elsewhere … When I post a comment mentioning the difficulties that a person with a disability faces when immigrating, the few replies are basically ‘I never knew.’ ”

Immigration is already a fraught scenario, made all the worse by administrative decisions based on exclusion and deterrence. As we engage with the national conversation on our borders and whom we want to be, turning away those seeking asylum, citizenship, and a better life, this is a harrowing and important perspective.

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(Apologies for almost missing this week — President’s Day and snow in D.C. threw me off! But we’re back in business, now!)

A11Y Color Contrast, Button Triads, and the new Pivotal UI Color Palette, Me!

“…I came to an epiphany: in modern UI design, we are rarely if ever using colors on pure black or white…Since I had optimized the “default” colors to be contrast-accessible on both pure white and pure black, I often found myself to jumping down the shade scale to make sure all my colors were accessible…”

Just a little shameless self-promotion! I wrote up an in-depth post on all the work we’ve been doing to update our internal style-guide…

Recently, I joined the Pivotal Apps Manager team with one express purpose: make it more accessible. I chose this team because its development team also builds and maintains the Pivotal UI style guide.

By improving the accessibility of AppsMan, as it is so lovingly called, I hope to abstract many of the updated components and bring them back into the Pivotal UI, enabling the 14 (or so) teams who use it to automatically become just a little bit more accessible.

This will also allow me to stress-test many of the components in a real use-case before setting it up as…

Color, Cloudflare.design

“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.
— Claude Monet”

An absolutely fabulous new tool from the Cloudflare designers that allows you to explore, discover, or adjust your own accessible color combinations. I’ve been using it in my work updating the Pivotal UI style guide and we’re all getting very excited by the results!

Websites Need To Be More Accessible for Disabled People, Vox

“The increasing domination of the digital space is also coming with heavier expectations around access and literacy; not being able to use the internet can be a barrier to finding, applying for, and retaining jobs, accessing government benefits, doing schoolwork, looking for love, and shopping…

A11Y.me

“A good start on web accessibility for you.”

Another great primer, similar to mine, constantly-updated and intended to help those looking to start out in a11y! I’ve already made it a bookmark.

A DIY Web Accessibility Blueprint, A List Apart

“Good accessibility is good UX. We should seek to create the best user experience for all. And we shouldn’t settle for simply meeting accessibility standards but rather strive to create an experience that delights users of all abilities.”

A must-read, in my opinion, on how to get support from leadership regarding accessibility, along with other tips and resources.

A11YCasts, Youtube Series

Started by the same advocates as our favorite Google-backed Udacity…