Accessibility

Want to reach a broader audience? You are not alone! Outside of the digital space, savvy planning can ensure that a product or service is usable by as many humans as possible by removing barriers and creating intuitive tools and welcoming spaces. Although websites offer a virtual rather than a physical experience, there is much to be learned from environmental design.

At Mediacurrent, we believe that the web should be accessible to everyone. 

Our new guide is designed for content editors, marketers, developers, and key stakeholders seeking to expand their knowledge of website accessibility, learn how a holistic approach to website accessibility can strengthen an organization, and take advantage of actionable steps to improve their website.

Topics include: 

Happy Friday everyone. This episode front end developer Ben Robertson is our guest to go over some things a developer may want to keep in mind when creating their site.

If you’re in Higher Education you’re likely becoming increasingly aware of the pressures for websites to be accessible, and really, it’s no wonder. Hundreds of Accessibility Lawsuits, Complaints, and Settlements have been filed against schools for having non-compliant websites and materials. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this big, scary monster waiting to get you. There are ways to help avoid complaints all together, and if you get one, there is a process to go through on your way to 508 compliance. 

If you’ve ever talked to someone who’s performed an accessibility audit you’ve heard us go on an on about the need for manual testing. Each of us loves the automated tools available that help make the web more accessible, but there are limitations to those tools: only 20-30% of errors can be reliably found with automated testing. They may generate false positives as well. When it comes to accessibility testing, you need to include the human element in the testing process.

I’ve been known to say that if a website audit is like an elephant being born, then auditing a website for PDF Accessibility is like platypus being born. Both are mammals but one’s a really big undertaking and the other is a bunch of eggs and you have no idea what you’ll find inside each one. That is because every PDF has the opportunity to present its own set of challenges beyond the fact that PDFs are not inherently accessible.

The technologies we use each day to access the web, our understanding of the challenges that are being faced by our users, and how we as an industry adapt to help level the playing field, are constantly evolving. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 have been developed so that our standards can continue to mature as well. These had planned to be released as a “CR” or a soft release this month, January 2018, with broader acceptance expected in the months to come.
 

Recently, I was lucky enough to catch a workshop by Brian Sinclair entitled 'Accessibility: The Basics and Beyond.'  The workshop was part of the DinosaurJS conference in Denver CO.

As part of the accessibility group at Mediacurrent, I was excited to see the issue being addressed at a javascript conference.

Slideshows, sliders, carousels: no matter what you call them, in terms of web design they are just evil. Do a quick Google search and you will see that most frontend developers and UX/UI designers can agree on this point and have been talking about it for years. But why do we still constantly see them? Part of the issue is that slideshows, especially in the hero region, are so ubiquitous that many clients see them as necessary and keep asking for them. They have essentially become a “home page standard.”

In my previous blog post, I talked about six design alternatives to avoid slideshows. The response to that blog post was great - who knew there were so many kindred spirits who dislike slideshows? From the feedback I received, the number one question was why are slideshows so bad in the first place? Hopefully this companion blog post will give you that deeper understanding of some reasons not to use a slideshow and maybe help convince your next client that slideshows are a thing of the past.