Web accessibility guidelines stipulate that links need to provide context for meaning; but they also stipulate that link text needs to be unique when it leads to a new resource. Under Success Criterion 2.4.4, a read more link after an excerpt of the post would be meaningful, because the context provides information about what the link does. But when generating a list of links, “read more” links produce a long series of links with the same text and different destinations, […]
Continue reading “Contemplating “read more” links” »Author: Joe Dolson
Security Fix in My Calendar
I released version 2.3.10 of My Calendar today, which fixes a major XSS security issue. Please upgrade – regardless of your current version – as soon as possible! This issue goes back quite a long ways and applies to many versions of My Calendar. And if you’re on a version of My Calendar that it doesn’t impact, you should update anyway. Seriously. Thanks to Tim Hurley for responsibly reporting this issue!
Continue reading “Security Fix in My Calendar” »The Visual-only icon problem
This is something I’ve been seeing a lot lately, and it’s got to stop. This illustrates the use of icon only controls. In this case, using an icon font. (Similar problems show up using any form of icon-only control, however!) Now, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with icon fonts; but there’s often a problem with how they’re used. In this particular case, these are two links, used to toggle a particular preference. You can tab to them and activate them from […]
Continue reading “The Visual-only icon problem” »WordPress Accessibility Plug-in: Who needs it?
TL;DR: The WP Accessibility plug-in contains features that will be useful to all WordPress sites, such as support for the longdesc attribute. Even if your theme was designed with accessibility in mind, there’s a place for the WP Accessibility plug-in on your site. The most common question I get about the WP Accessibility plug-in is “When do I need this plug-in?” Fact is, most people don’t know whether their themes are accessible. Further, it’s hard to pin down which aspects […]
Continue reading “WordPress Accessibility Plug-in: Who needs it?” »It’s all in the timing
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the crucial nature of timing in what I do. Like everything, when you engage on a particular step can have a profound impact on what you can accomplish. In any web project, engaging on web accessibility from the beginning can make the difference between a nominal percentage of the budget dedicated to ensuring accessibility and massive budget bloat caused by the need for extensive review of complex systems that gave no thought to the subject […]
Continue reading “It’s all in the timing” »