Accessibility Awareness

What Your Organization Needs to Navigate Canada Digital Accessibility Laws | Deque In this post, we focus on the different digital accessibility laws in Canada and how to meet digital accessibility compliance requirements.

If you do business in Canada, you should be aware of these accessibility laws: Accessible Canada Act (ACA), Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA), and Accessible British Columbia Act (ABCA).

www.deque.com/blog/canada-...

For screen readers to recognize headings, heading text can't just be body text or normal text that's been made to look bigger and bolder. It must be formatted as a heading. In Microsoft Word and Google Docs, this can be done in the styles box. In HTML, use the tags h1 through h6.

You don't necessarily need to say "image of" in your alt text for users to know it's an image. Screen readers will announce that it's an image. But it can help readers to specify if it's a hand-drawn image, Polaroid, infographic, screenshot, chart, map, diagram, or so on.

Automatically updating content can be extremely distracting, especially for users with vestibular disorders or attention difficulties. This could force users to scroll through page content to not see the animation, or to just look away. Allow animations to be paused or stopped.

You don't necessarily want to use the exact same alt text each time a specific image is used. Alt text must consider the context of the image and why it's being included on a site, post, article, etc. In other words, alt text depends on where you're including the image and why.

Plain language is communication that your audience or readers can understand the first time they hear or read it. The terminology you use will vary depending on the audience. Always aim to avoid jargon when possible, especially when you have a broad general audience.

An intro to designing accessible data visualizations by Sarah L. Fossheim 10 dos and don'ts for designing accessible data visualizations, including real-life examples and resources

People often ask what accessibility considerations to keep in mind when creating data visualizations. For guidance and advice, check out Sarah L. Fossheim's list of 10 things to do (or not do) when designing accessible data visualizations.

fossheim.io/writing/post...

ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector) is a free accessibility testing tool used by people testing for Section 508 compliance. ANDI can't detect everything, but can find some issues and give some suggestions to improve the issues it detects.

www.ssa.gov/accessibilit...

If you feel like you don't know what you don't know about accessibility, it can help to follow folks who discuss assistive technology, accessibility and disability. Here's a list of people who post a lot about those.

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Accessibility Testing - Rachele DiTullio Hundreds of folks have expressed an interest in watching someone go through an accessibility test. I perform accessibility testing regularly and created these resources to demonstrate the process. My ...

If you feel daunted by the idea accessibility testing and don't know where to begin, this resource from accessibility engineer Rachele DiTullio can help. This includes an accessibility testing spreadsheet, along with guides on how to prepare for testing.

racheleditullio.com/projects/acc...

#Susanalbumparty: Top five Twitter hashtag PR disasters Following the most recent addition to the Twitter hashtag wall of shame – here's a roundup of the best and add your own

Anytime capitalization and hashtags get mentioned, someone will say some variation of "You forgot my favorite: sus anal bum party!" So for you #susanalbumparty fans (or #SusanAlbumParty fans), here you go.

www.theguardian.com/technology/s...

Capitalization affects how people read hashtags or how people hear them on screen readers. Use #camelCase or #PascalCase in hashtags instead of lowercase. You could have #DoctorWhoRewatch ("Doctor Who Rewatch") or #doctorwhorewatch ("doctor whore watch.")

Alt text must provide context for people who cannot see the image. Describe the image's context and purpose. Do not write alt text for cute or clever jokes based on visual content you expect users can see. This is an abuse of alt text, as it violates the whole point of alt text.

A transcript is the only way to make video or audio content accessible to someone who is both deaf and blind. Transcripts can be converted into braille, to be read on a refreshable braille output device.

Consistent layout makes websites easier to navigate and understand as it helps users learn what elements to expect and in what order. This is especially helpful to low vision users or blind users using a screen reader. It also helps those with cognitive and learning disabilities.

A refreshable Braille display is a device that takes a computer screen's text and generates it in Braille by raising and lowering pins through holes on a flat surface. The display refreshes as the user moves through the screen's content.

www.afb.org/node/16207/r...

Some people may be unable to use a mouse, and instead rely exclusively on keyboards, or use assistive technologies such as speech recognition, head pointers, mouth sticks, or eye-gaze tracking systems. If a website is accessible only to mouse users, these people will be excluded.

Plain language is communication that your audience can understand the first time they hear or read it. This varies by audience, of course. What is common vocabulary for clergy won't necessarily be common for chemists, attorneys, or engineers. Know your audience.

When creating PDFs, avoid using "Print to PDF." A screen reader user may still be able to access the text of PDFs created this way, but heading structure, alternative text, and any other tag structure will be lost. Using "Save As" or "Export" can preserve these tags.

Don't forget to add alt text on Instagram and Facebook, too. When you forget, the auto-generated alt text is not as helpful, complete, or accurate as human-written alt text. A.I. can't know the purpose of a photo. Always add your own alt text on Instagram and Facebook.

Blaming Screen Readers 🚩×5 The title of this post is pretty specific. It relates to the meme on Twitter where users identify a trait or preference that they see as problematic, and identify it as a red flag. The emoji represent...

People often blame screen readers for memes or posts being inaccessible. But frustrations with how screen readers work don't let us off the hook. We should still try. Adrian Roselli has a great resource on what screen readers are (and aren't).

adrianroselli.com/2021/10/blam...

How People with Disabilities Use the Web Introduces how people with disabilities, including people with age-related impairments, use the Web.

People who want to make the web accessible need to understand the many different ways that people with disabilities use the web. This W3C resource offers a good introduction to how disabled people navigate the web, and barriers they commonly encounter.

www.w3.org/WAI/people-u...

If a word has some letters replaced with asterisks, this could confuse people. This includes people with cognitive and reading disabilities, and those learning the language. Screen reader users won't necessarily know what the word is meant to be, as it could sound like gibberish.

Avoid emoji icons in alt text. Emoji icons are a visual element, so it's counterintuitive to add them to non-visual content. You'll likely confuse people with messages that don't make sense. In alt text, use plain text, free of symbols, icons, or any weird special characters.

When considering rainbow text, don't forget to consider readability and legibility. Text filled with rainbows can be difficult to read. Same with complex rainbow backgrounds. Putting each word or letter in a different color of the rainbow could force readers to work harder.

Get in the habit of bringing up accessibility at meetings, in stand-ups, and in demos. Bring up things you've done to address accessibility. Likewise, don't be afraid to ask, "Have we tested this on a keyboard?" or "What's the experience like on a screen reader?"

I don't, no. Those are not my resources. The best recourse I can think of to find accessibility resources in Spanish, use the hashtag #accesibilidad. The hashtag #accessibilité helps you find resources in French.

Writing Alt Text for Data Visualization How do you write text that conveys the whole meaning of a visualization? You probably can’t. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try

Many struggle with writing alt text for charts and other other data visualizations. Amy Cesal's "Writing Alt Text for Data Visualization" hammers home the importance of explaining the chart type, the type of data, and the reason for the chart.

medium.com/nightingale/...

Do not cram alt text with keywords just to improve search engine optimization. This will hinder alt text’s true purpose: improving accessibility. Focus on describing the photo's content. Search engine optimization should not be the goal for writing good alt text.

Templates could be designed and coded according to web accessibility standards, but this won't ensure that the final product would be accessible. Content creators still need to know about key accessibility concepts, including alt text, link text, and proper headings.