Tag: testing

Testing Color Contrast for WCAG 1 & 2

May 14, 2008

32 Comments

Topics: Accessibility, Web standards.

Use the Color Contrast Spectrum Tester or compare the contrast of two colors. Some time ago, while pondering whether web accessibility posed limitations on design, the thought occurred to me that there are presumably some colors which simply cannot be used for text or text backgrounds in any site. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 1 does not, in fact, provide any specific guidelines concerning color contrast. The formulas commonly used to judge this were specified in Techniques For Accessibility Evaluation […]

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An Example of Automated Accessibility Testing

November 15, 2007

14 Comments

Topics: Accessibility.

Every once in a while, somebody mentions to me how they’re concerned because their (or my) site didn’t “pass” some online accessibility evaluator or another. This always opens up the conversation for one big, complicated issue: why automated accessibility testing just doesn’t work. This isn’t to say that automated testing doesn’t have a place; but it should never be considered the deciding factor for accessibility. The Functional Accessibility Evaluator from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was pointed out to […]

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“Prettiness” is relative.

November 6, 2007

9 Comments

Topics: Usability, Web Development.

At least, in the final reckoning. Something which comes up over and over in my work is the tendency of clients to request design changes which I don’t particularly care for. This isn’t to say that they’re ugly, per se — after all, the fact that I don’t like them isn’t actually equal to “ugly.” Early on, I would argue with clients concerning these design changes — try and get them to see my perspective, etc. But the fact is […]

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