Back in 2017, I noticed that the UK Post Office was doing very dodgy things with their alt text. Lots of their pages had this snippet of code: Rather than add properly accessible alt text, a developer added placeholder Latin text. Being a good webizen, I tried to report this. Hi Terence, we are looking…
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There's an HTML element called <time>. It is a semantic element. That means robots can read and understand it. For example, if my code says: <p> The concert is <time datetime="2020-12-24">tomorrow</time> </p> Then the computer knows the specific date I'm talking about. A browser could offer to add the event to your calendar, or a…
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Dark Mode is the new cool. Apps which automatically switch to an eye-friendly palette when lighting conditions are poor. Nifty! Most of the time, it's as simple as making the text a lightish colour, and the background a darkish colour. But all that fails when you use transparencies in images. Here's a quick example. Using…
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In order to provide a video playback UI, WordPress uses the excellent MediaElement library. Recently, I discovered a slightly annoying flaw - I couldn't see the play button! Here's a screenshot of the video UI. In the middle of this screenshot is a white play button. I have trouble seeing it, because the video's background…
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My mate, the accessibility specialist Léonie Watson, has this to say about how we improve the world, piece-by-piece: Accessibility doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a little bit better than yesterday. Source: Twitter Damn straight! One of the best ways we can make tomorrow slightly better than today is by making…
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Apple's attitude to usability is... complex. The general attitude of "you're holding it wrong" seems to be prevalent across all their products. I like having a large mouse cursor. I find it easier to see on my large monitor, especially when sat at a safe distance. But, if I use a large cursor - I…
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Dark times, my friends. Dark times. It's up to all of us to pull together. And that means making vital health information accessible. One of the easiest things you can do is make your Twitter content accessible is by adding descriptions to your images. Go to twitter.com/settings/accessibility and turn on "Compose image descriptions". Here's why.…
Continue reading →I was in need of a new laptop, so I bought a cheap ChromeBook - mostly because Amazon could deliver it the same day. Sadly, the trackpad was broken. Before I sent it back, I thought I'd try using a mouse with it. That's when I discovered that accessibility is very much a second thought…
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Regular readers will know about my recent court visit. I was grumpy about the lack of connected digital services within the court. As I left court, I asked if there was anything they needed me to fill in or sign. They said there wasn't. I just sort of assumed that I wouldn't get any expenses…
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When I'm bored, I like to search websites for the "Lorem Ipsum" placeholder text. It's a quick way to find discarded pages and test content. I was particularly confused that the UK's Post Office had a dozen pages containing that little Latin phrase. A quick dive into one of the pages, found this enlightening snippet…
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