a11y (digital accessibility)

This ART Tutorial Video provides an overview of the tool and how to use it. Basd on the type of project and the software/hardware being used ART will provide 508 standards to check for.

This article provides the analogy of a tree to explore the different processes of accessibility implementation.

This article provides the analogy of a tree to explore the different processes of accessibility implementation.

When I started reading this article I didn't know who wrote it. Then when I got to the bottom I realized it was written by the CEO of Accessibee. Clearly, he is trying to sell that AI can do everything. Yet, AI struggles with interpreting the author's intention when it comes to alt text and image descriptions. This is why even if the AI can provide a valid description it doesn't mean that it is capturing what the author intended. Additionally, these plugins can impact the performance of a website and create new accessibility barriers that aren't on the original site. A lot of their features like text-to-speech, high contrast mode, changing the font, etc. are things that the user would usually do globally not on a per-site basis. Overall, be aware that these AI overlays can overpromise and if trusted solely may lead to lawsuits. I recommend paying a web accessibility expert to fix the code of the website.

The W3C highlights accessibility strategies that are easy to apply to websites. Each check explains why the accessibility strategy is important and how to check for it.

This is an EDUCAUSE poll that explores what higher education institutions are doing around accessibility. There is a need for institutions to offer more required training, get buy-in from institutional leadership, and promote a proactive culture instead of taking a reactive approach to accessibility. Institutions now are more likely to have staff dedicated to accessibility and to have an accessibility policy.

I'm very grateful that I could Adrian's CSUN presentation WCAGmire. The talk was on malicious compliance and examining the holes in the WCAG guidelines. Hopefully, we can get designers/developers to strive to make their web pages/applications accessible to all people rather than just being compliant in the future.

I'm not sure what happened to the SignAloud gloves but it seems like the technology has come to market and is being sold by BrightSign.

This is a cool idea. Hopefully, it might be implemented in the future.

This article from Articulate highlights how to create accessible tables in Storyline. The part on accessibility is at the end of the page. It is important to set a custom focus order for the table to ensure it is read correctly by assistive technology.

I have created checklists on how to make accessible Rise and Storyline courses. These checklists are not all-encompassing but can be a good starting place to help you develop an accessible course.

Assembly Bill 1757 will make businesses prioritize digital accessibility and foster access for all people. I completely disagree with this article but I think it is important to know about the fear-mongering being used by the other side to try to drum up support to kill this legislation. We need to stand up for disability rights and web accessibility.

WebAIM provides design tips that can help make web content more accessible for people with cognitive disabilities.

This article explores different ways of coding strikethrough and uses screen reading software to determine how accessible each method is. Hopefully, more screen reading software will support the scenario 1 method used in the future.

The W3C keeps a list of different digital accessibility courses offered by third-party providers. If you're interested in training it might be a good resource to check out.

This article explores generative AI and the potential benefits and limitations of using AI when testing the accessibility of a website or web application.

This journal article explores computer science professors teaching accessibility. Only half of the 175 institutions surveyed had a professor teaching an accessibility course. The researchers also surveyed 1,857 computer science professors and found that over 10% reported not being knowledgeable about accessibility and over 60% reported some knowledge about accessibility. This highlights a need to educate professors about digital accessibility. #accessibility

This article provides tips for how to ensure a check all or undo all checkbox is accessible.

These are rumored accessibility features that might be featured in the next Mac and iOS operating systems.

I think this article does a good job of highlighting why Jakob Nielson's take that generative AI will fix accessibility is misguided.

This is an interesting article on the challenges and opportunities for AI in accessibility. I believe that a major weak point right now is that AI cannot consistently provide meaningful alt text. It struggles to determine what is decorative and meaningful. Also even if it can make that determination it has a hard time determining the author's intent. I think that humans will need to provide context to the AI. The author's prompt will help the AI analyze a series of images and provide meaningful alt text in the future. I don't believe this process will be fully automated for a very long time.

This is a new law that will be taking effect this year in July. It requires governmental agencies to ensure their web content, PDFs, and applications are WCAG 2.1 AA compliant. A governmental agency can be fined for each violation and must submit a digital accessibility plan. Hopefully, more states will start to implement something similar.

This article highlights best practices for indicating mandatory form fields.

I recently saw a demo of Be My Eyes AI and it does a great job describing photos. I can see how this can be a game changer in helping people who are blind or low vision take photos or engage with photos on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

This article highlights the impact that digital accessibility features like live captioning can have on older adults. Unfortunately, a lot of seniors are unaware of the free accessibility features available to them. It is important to promote these accessibility features so that seniors can take advantage of them.