One of my biggest misconceptions when I first started learning about accessibility was… well, basically everything I thought I knew about assistive technology. When we talk about accessibility, we talk a lot about screen readers and other assistive devices. And if you’ve never used or been around this kind of technology, it’s easy […]
Alt Text… or Text Alternatives?
The Phrase “Alt Text” comes up a lot when we talk about web and content accessibility. We’ve got lots of content about Alt Text. But Alt Text is not the terminology used by WCAG. Instead, they use the phrase “Text Alternative”. Let’s take a look at why: What’s the Difference? Alt Text is […]
Are Your Emails Accessible?
In this blog, we’ll go over three things to look for when making sure the emails you send out are accessible. Adequate Font Size and Color Contrast If you’ve got a lot to say, it can be tempting to choose a smaller font. Sometimes even the default font, 12pt, can have some users reaching for […]
Audible Captions and the Publishing Industry
What Are Audible Captions? Back in July of 2019, Amazon-based platform Audible announced a new feature called “Audible Captions”. The feature, as you might have guessed, provided machine-generated captions to accompany Audible’s audiobooks. These captions only provided users with around 3 words of text at time, which were shown as the text was read aloud. […]
The Trouble with Accessibility Overlays
I think it’s safe to say that the word is out: accessibility overlays do not work. In fact, if you Google “accessibility overlay”, you’ll get more results about how they don’t work than results about the products themselves. And there is plenty written about why these do not work—and how they might actually cause you some trouble. But […]
The Harvard Content Accessibility Lawsuit
Here are some fast facts about the recently settled high profile web content accessibility lawsuits filed against Harvard and MIT. Both of these lawsuits were officially settled in February 2020 by way of consent decrees. Each school agreed to a new accessibility standard for all future content. They also agreed to bring all existing content […]
What is Section 508?
Section 508, part of the Rehabilitation Act, applies to the accessibility of electronic information technologies (EIT). It pertains specifically to EIT utilized or managed by federal organizations. Simply put, compliant websites or applications will provide users and employees who have a disability with all of the same information and access as users and employees who […]
Is Virtual Reality Accessible?
When most people think of virtual reality (VR), they think of video games. And it’s true that this is still the primary use case being sold by the industry. But the future of VR extends far beyond entertainment. VR and AR (Augmented Reality) are already being adapted in educational and business settings. And as the […]
WCAG Vocabulary Explained
WCAG is broken up into four sections that outline important accessibility considerations. But the language used to define these sections is a bit abstract. And the items contained within these sections use some very technical language. If you’re not a developer, it can be challenging to figure out just what these guidelines are talking about. […]
What is ARIA?
ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. You may also see it written WAI-ARIA, which stands for Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications. ARIA is a set of HTML attributes that let us add information to our elements to be used by assistive devices. Semantic HTML gives us some of this information but […]