Posts
Fixing Alt - Mr. Twitter
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The next in our "Fixing Alt" series is the Mr. Twitter comic on Agent-X Comics. Here's the alternative text for yet another comic which lacks it. The alt and title attributes are both blank. Sad.
So here the text description:
Image: Two men standing by wall with poster of man with sunglasses, mustache and bow tie. The poster reads "Mr. Twitter, the master of impersonation. Tonight only."
Man 1: Why do they call him Mr. Twitter?
Man 2: Because he only does 140 characters.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Labels: "fixing alt", alt, twitter
Accessibility at Google IO 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
So I attended the first day of Google I/O 2011, my first time at a Google event. I was glad to hear a fair amount of talk about accessibility. There were at least 3 sessions focusing on the topic (see below) and a breakout area where you can talk with developers.
There was even an accessibility "Developer Sandbox" area which was great. I tried out the ChromeVox screen reader on a Chromebook with help from Google's Rachel Shearer. I got a quick demo of the built-in TalkBack screen reader on an Android mobile device. Mika Pyyhkala and I were shown the LevelStar braille device running Android. The University of Washington showed off their mobile ASL Android project which used video chat technology.
Some tips for Android development from the sessions are:
- In Android code, ensure images, especially ImageButtons, are labeled with
contentDescription. - Use standard controls.
- Stick with standard or modified views; custom very complex to make accessible.
- Ensure all controls reachable with D-pad and Trackball.
- Test with screen reader using D-Pad. To turn on, enable accessibility under Settings/Accessibility, then enable Talkback.
- Take advantage of device's "many eyes and ears" for alternative input/output (microphone, speaker, touch screen, camera, GPS)
The sessions specific to accessibility were:
- Accessibility: Building Products that Everyone Can Use by Brad Green, Erin Rosenthal (on YouTube)
- Leveraging Android Accessibility APIs To Create An Accessible Experience by Charles Chen, T.V. Raman, Tim Credo (on YouTube)
- Creating Accessible Interactive Web Apps using HTML5 by Dominic Mazzoni, Rachel Shearer (on YouTube)
- Added via comment below: The YouTube Caption API, Speech Recognition, and WebVTT captions for HTML5 by Naomi Black, Cynthia Boedihardjo, Jeffrey Posnick (on YouTube)
More resources:
- My Flickr album from Google I/O 2011
- Google Accessibility Resources for developers and publishers: APIs, captioning, and standards
- Android Developers - Designing for Accessibility
- The official Google I/O 2011 announcements
Tim Credo, Charles Chen, and T.V. Raman on stage at Google I/O.
Labels: conference, google, html5, mobile, visual
Accessibility Twitter Lists
Monday, May 09, 2011
A list of lists! Here are some great Twitter lists relating to accessibility.
- Web Accessibility list by Me @WebAxe
- Accessibility list by Michael Mistak @MichaelMistak
- Accessibility list by Sandi Wassmer @SandiWassmer
- Accessibility list by A11Y @A11Y
- HTML5 Accessibility Task Force list by Laura Carlson @laura_carlson
- Accessibility list by Angela Hooker @AccessForAll
- Accessibility list by STCAccess @STCAccess
- Bonus! This is interesting. Here's a Twitter list of blind users: Vision list by @STCAccess
Know any others?
Labels: twitter
Resources for Writing for Web Accessibility
Monday, May 02, 2011
A large part of web accessibility is creating content which can be easily understood, and writing is often times an overlooked factor. Like coding a website, writing must account for a variety of user conditions and abilities. It's tricky! Here are some great articles to help.
FiveSeven-part series from 4syllables
- Introduction: Accessibility for web writers, part 1
- Text alternatives for images: Accessibility for web writers, part 2
- Info and relationships: Accessibility for web writers, part 3
- Sensory characteristics: Accessibility for web writers, part 4
- Colour: Accessibility for web writers, part 5
- Added: Contrast, part 6 (thanks to Karen's comment below)
- Added: Images of text: accessibility for web writers, part 7
More great articles
- Accessible writing versus writing for a global audience (Unleash Web Access)
- Writing for Real People (from PlainLanguage.com)
- Web Writing Guidelines for Content Contributors (Meet Content)
- I Don't Want to Read More or Click Here (by Karen Mardahl)
- WCAG 2.0 for writers (SlideShare)
