Often times when we think of accessibility, we may think of the blind, the deaf, or those with other physical disabilities. Occasionally, we will think about those with cognitive disabilities. But accessibility means making something accessible to all, and there is a group that often gets overlooked: those who have multiple disabilities.
Jason Webb, our Developer Advocate, published “Building an accessible IoT dashboard,” an article summarizing a project he built at the recent IoT HackDay hackathon. The article discusses a variety of accessible design and development techniques that can be applied to advanced UIs of all kinds, including:
Custom focus indicators Making live charts accessible Alerting users about critical asynchronous UI changes using ARIA live regions Be sure to check out Jason’s article to learn about these things and more!
A few months ago, I went to a Texas convenience store: the convenience store to end all convenience stores. There was amazing food all over and I, as a blind person, could order exactly nothing.
At A360, we use Slack constantly to communicate within our teams. Many of our staff are remote and the tool has been invaluable for keeping everyone connected. However, Slack has a number of accessibility challenges, particularly on the desktop for screen reader users. While Slack is starting to take accessibility seriously, knowing a few tricks and shortcuts will make the user experience much better. The following are some tips we’ve assembled as a team:
Physical fitness is something that’s very important to all people. But for people with disabilities, this can be particularly challenging. Part of the problem is that people with disabilities, on average, tend to lead more sedentary lives because of their disabilities. However, there are still many activities that can be done. Here are some good accessible exercise ideas:
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a standard, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), designed to instruct web developers on how to make their websites accessible to users with disabilities. Although the WCAG does a very good job at detailing best practices for website accessibility, the reality is that no standard, no matter how well designed, can (a) keep up with fast-moving technology trends, and (b) provide guidelines that appropriately accommodate the needs of people with such a wide range of disabilities.
Accessibility is a new, yet old, concept. Before the mainstream digital age, accessibility simply meant wheelchair ramps for those with physical disabilities, and Braille for the blind. However, the digital age brought with it a whole new wave of accessibility.
Aaron Cannon and Michele Landis, two of our co-founders, will be presenting at the 2019 Zipnosis Customer Summit on September 9. Zipnosis, a leader in telemedicine, has partnered with A360 to improve its digital accessibility efforts. Michele will give an overview of the digital accessibility landscape, and Aaron will help lead a screen reader demonstration and other technical topics. Registration for the Customer Summit is free and open to Zipnosis customers.
In the ever expanding need to fight spambots, autobots, and other evildoers on the web, there has been an uptick of CAPTCHAs roaming around the web. We all know what they are: those annoying “type the letters you see in the image below” boxes that seem to block every online form today.
Now here’s the key word: see. Type the letters you “see” in the image below. But what if users are blind and can’t “see?
A360 was recently featured in an article about restaurant website accessibility for our work with BentoBox, a simple, hospitality-focused management system and hosting platform. Bentobox Design Director A.J. Camara talked about web accessibility best practices, including the hierarchy of functionality vs. aesthetics. He said, “Functionality is most important because it’s the basis for which aesthetics can thrive.”
We really appreciate BentoBox’s commitment to digital accessibility in the restaurant industry, providing equitable access for all their customers. We also appreciate the shout-out!
