Blog page 4

Axe-core vs PA11Y

Published on , in Testing,

We use axe-core by Deque regularly as part of acceptance tests.

With GitLab now offering PA11Y as part of the Continuous Integration (CI) Pipeline with zero config, I wanted to understand how it stacked up against axe-core. Can you drop axe-core for PA11Y? Can you drop PA11Y for axe-core? Should you use both?

5 arguments against accessibility and why they are wrong

Published on , in Inclusion and advocacy,

In my role, I deal with many different teams and organisations. I also get involved in a bunch of other things on the side, just because accessibility is so misunderstood. One thing which has become quite apparent is that there are some common misconceptions regardless of which team, department or arms-length body you talk to.

Defining a strategy for accessibility

Published on , in Strategy and leadership,

I remember in school we learned about the fire-triangle. Fuel, Oxygen and heat are required to make a fire burn. If you remove any of those things from the equation, the fire will use up what it has left and eventually burn out.

We can think of accessibility in a large organisation in the same way. There are 3 core parts. Compliance, culture, and capability. If you lack any of these 3 things over a sustained period of time, the strategy is unsustainable and your ability to consistently deliver accessible services will burn out.

Back to blogging

Published on , in Wellbeing,

Well, it’s been a while.

I haven’t published a blog post on my personal site for several years.

The exact reason, I’m actually unsure of, but I’m pretty sure it’s anxiety related.

Designing the impossible makes it possible

Published on , in Design and development,

As an interaction designer, I hear a sentence at least once on every project I work on. “We can’t do that because [insert mediocre excuse here].”

A lot of the time this is because of technology restrictions. We can’t integrate with legacy systems. Or, we can, but the legacy system wants the information in a ridiculous format. So we have to change the design to ask for a mandatory middle name, where people have to write “none” in the box to progress. Urgh.

It’s easy to make a snap decision, bow to peer pressure and change the design. After all, we don’t want to waste our time designing something that’s not possible.

Only, that’s exactly what we should do.

What is it like to use a screen reader on an inaccessible website?

Published on , in Inclusion and advocacy,

Screen readers are amazing things. But they can be difficult learn and use.

When we see with our eyes, we see in 3 dimensions. We can look up, down, left and right, and we can look a things close to us or in the distance.

Almost all websites are 2 dimensional. You can position content top to bottom and left to right.

A screen reader really can only view a website in 1 dimension. It’s features are linear. It removes all of the visual positioning, lines all of the content up, then it navigates through it from start to finish.

One-page-applications are not accessible

Published on , in Design and development,

Ok, this maybe should have been called one-page-applications are rarely accessible. Anything can be made accessible, it just takes a lot of effort, and very few people put the effort in.

One-page-applications are on the rise. With them you get funky animations and cool transition effects. Some are a real beauty to behold.

The biggest problem with one-page-applications, is they often create a terrible experience for people using screen readers.

What can Baloo teach us about design?

Published on , in Design and development,

The idea of design-reuse has been around for many years. Walt Disney reused many scenes. They also reused entire characters. Cartoon creators called this reanimation. It’s the process of tracing over existing frames to save time and money.

You may not have noticed before, but Disney’s Baloo and Little John are almost identical. They were even voiced by the same person, Phil Harris.

Mental health and flexible working hours

Published on , in Wellbeing,

When I first started working for Government, I found flexi-time awkward.

Until this point, my entire career had been fixed working patterns and strict start times. If I was 1 minute late, my boss would dock my wages by 15 minutes.

So, it seemed alien to me to have any flexibility at all.

Because bad organisations had conditioned me for over a decade, I thought there must be a catch. I assumed it was one of those things where people say one thing but mean another.

I thought if I came in 30 minutes late people would act fine to my face, but there would be a secret strike against my name. If I chalked up enough strikes I’d get disciplined. The last place I worked loved this secret strike system!

Validation for prototypes

Published on , in Design and development,

I made a jQuery plugin a couple of years back. It picked up a data attribute called data-required. It also picked up an error message you passed into data-error. Then, it checked if the input was blank or unchecked. If it was, it would append the error messages and prevent the user from submitting the form.

The thing is, I thought I built the plugin off the back of a user need, and I was happy when people praised my work. But in reality, I think I missed the point. As did everybody that used it.