I’ve always believed that web site accessibility depends on an understanding of accessibility issues — not on technical issues. Obviously, knowing the technical side of web site construction and how it impacts accessibility is very important. Some decisions are fundamentally technical, but a huge part of web site accessibility is purely visible — and just understanding accessibility issues will make a huge difference. To that end, here are a few quick comments about color blindness. Color blindness (or color perception […]
Continue reading “Color Blindness Myths and Misunderstandings” »Category: Accessibility
Forthcoming Updates on Federal Section 508 Rules
Section 508 web accessibility standards were written as an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act in 1998. In web development terms, this isn’t short of an eternity — and in all practical sense defines an era. The web programming methods and styles of 1998 were radically different to what you see in normal use today. The Section 508 rules have been under revision recently, and were available for public comment until June 21, 2010. Unfortunately, my time didn’t allow me to […]
Continue reading “Forthcoming Updates on Federal Section 508 Rules” »Accessibility Viewer Application Beta from the Paciello Group
Steve Faulkner, from The Paciello Group, just announced the beta release of their new Accessibility Viewer application aViewer. The purpose of the application is to give easy access to what information the browser is reporting back through Accessibility APIs. It’s an interesting application, and certainly has the potential to provide useful information in the future. It is in beta, of course, so it may not function entirely perfectly — in my installation, I had trouble getting a few features to […]
Continue reading “Accessibility Viewer Application Beta from the Paciello Group” »When More is Less
One of the most famously cliched spy movie themes is the absurdly complex method (and accompanying explanation) in which the villain intends to kill the hero. Layer upon layer of killer sharks, laser beams, poisonous gases, and robot assassins employed with the sole intention of killing one fundamentally normal person (albeit a very suave person, of course.) And, naturally, it always fails. Something goes wrong in the system; gross negligence of maintenance causes a malfunction; or some unanticipated exception allows […]
Continue reading “When More is Less” »When the right hand doesn’t listen to the left.
Thanks to the power of internet criticism, the code discussed in this blog post has since been fixed! Sometimes just making a complaint is all it takes to get something fixed. I was highly critical of the code authors for this low-quality code; but they truly did care, and made changes. Thank you. Authoring forms is an important part of keeping the web fully accessible — not just providing access to information, but allowing users to fully interact with the […]
Continue reading “When the right hand doesn’t listen to the left.” »