Accessibility Awareness

If you share images of what to do during a weather-related emergency, share that advice with blind and low-vision users, too. Add alt text. The alt text should include the text in the image, rather than just a vague description, so people aren't missing out on vital information.

Welcome to Game Accessibility Nexus - Game Accessibility Nexus Your resource for accessibility in videogames! Game reviews, guidelines, articles on assistive software and hardware, commentary, interviews, and recommendations of games with a high level of accessib...

Game Accessibility Nexus focuses on video game accessibility. The reviews, articles, and interviews offer insight for both game players and game developers.

www.gameaccessibilitynexus.com

YouTube uses automatic speech recognition to automatically generate captions for videos when they are uploaded. These might need some editing and tweaking before publishing, but it's possible to edit these captions directly in YouTube.

support.google.com/youtube/answ...

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.

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.

Overlays are widgets or technologies that promise to improve a site's accessibility with third-party source code. More than 1,000 accessibility advocates and web developers have signed an open letter to explain the limitations and dangers of these products.

overlayfactsheet.com

Learn Accessibility  |  web.dev An evergreen accessibility course and reference to level up your web development.

"Learn Accessibility" is a course that takes you through the essentials for building accessible websites and web apps. Created for both beginners and advanced users, this course can be taken beginning to end, or used as a reference for specific topics.

web.dev/learn/access...

Vestibular disorders affect people's balance as well as their visual perception of their world around them. Don't make animations, sliders, videos, or rapid movement start automatically, as autoplaying elements could trigger a bad reaction in people who have vestibular disorders.

Don't buy into the myth that "accessibility is only about adding alternative text to images." Alt text is important, of course. But there is so much more to accessibility, including headline structure, functional controls, color contrast, link text, plain language, and more.

6 Common Caption Mistakes: Is Your Video Guilty of Any? Your captioned video has standard captions that are accurate and in sync with the audio. It could be making one of these six mistakes.

If you're new to captioning videos for your content, you might feel as if you don't know what you don't know. Meryl Evans' "Does Your Video Make These 6 Common Caption Mistakes?" is a great resource to help make your captions better.

meryl.net/common-capti...

Auto-generated captions and transcripts can be a starting point, but there is no automated tool or AI tool that can "instantly" do these things without any human involvement. There still needs to be a human who reviews, edits, and polishes captions and transcripts before publishing.

AI is often sold as perfect solutions to the "problem" of having to create captions and transcripts. That framing, of course, centers creators and producers over the people who actually rely upon the captions and transcripts. But there is no replacement for humans when making content accessible.

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...

Giving a damn about accessibility A candid and practical handbook for designers.

Sheri Byrne-Haber's "Giving A Damn About Accessibility" has great tips on how to deal with people who challenge or dismiss the need for accessibility.

uxdesign.cc/giving-a-dam...

Designing services for people who need help with numbers Low numeracy affects half of adults in the UK. Many live with the limitations of not understanding numbers and the impact that has on everyday life.

Many live with the limitations of not understanding numbers and the impact that has on everyday life. Laura Parker's Accessible Numbers project offers guidance on how to design services and write content for people who need help with numbers.

accessiblenumbers.com

When using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, don't just make text bigger and bolder to make it a heading. That will work for sighted users, but screen reader users will miss that and just hear it as normal paragraph text. Use actual heading styles, like level 1 through 6.

Audio descriptions are necessary for making videos accessible. They narrate the crucial visual elements that would be necessary for understanding the plot without the ability to see the screen. They describe non-verbal cues like gestures, facial expressions, or eye contact.

If you have Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, WebAIM's WAVE extensions can help review sites directly within the browser. Automated tests can't catch everything, but WAVE can still find many barriers and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors.

wave.webaim.org/extension/

Do not rely on the A.I.-generated alt text in Facebook or Instagram. The result is vague and useless, like "may be an image of food and text," and "may be an image of outdoors." These do nothing to give users the context and content of an image.

Find Digital Accessibility Jobs on A11yjobs.com Discover top jobs in digital accessibility, including web accessibility, ARIA, WCAG, Section 508, ADA compliance, and more. Join the A11y community with roles on a11yjobs.com.

Looking for a digital accessibility job? Or looking to hire someone for an accessibility role? A11yjobs is a digital accessibility job board.

www.a11yjobs.com

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.

Alt text always depends on context. Imagine an icon of a computer printer. It could be used on a page of free icons. It could be on a school's computer lab site. Or it could be part of a button that allows you to print the current page. In each instance, the same icon would need different alt text.

Learn Accessibility  |  web.dev An evergreen accessibility course and reference to level up your web development.

"Learn Accessibility" is a course that takes you through the essentials for building accessible websites and web apps. Created for both beginners and advanced users, this course can be taken beginning to end, or used as a reference for specific topics.

web.dev/learn/access...

YouTube video by UCSF Documents & Media Photography Screen Reader Demo for Digital Accessibility

For people who don't use screen readers, it can be difficult to understand how screen readers work. If you're interested in learning how people use screen readers, check out this demo from Marc Sutton and The University of California San Francisco.

youtu.be/dEbl5jvLKGQ

If you pair light colors (yellow text on white background) or dark colors (dark blue text on black background), users will struggle to read your content. Understanding color contrast will help you better serve all users, especially those with low vision.

webaim.org/articles/con...

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.

The case for describing race in alternative text attributes How to describe race in alt text and why it’s important

A common question about alt text is whether or not it's appropriate to mention attributes like race or skin tone. A common response is, "It depends." In this post, Tolu Adegbite explains how race can be relevant and important in providing context.

medium.com/shopify-ux/t...

Don't forget transcripts for video and audio. These will help blind users and low-vision users, deaf and hard-of-hearing users, people with ADHD, people with audio-processing disorders, and beyond. Transcripts also benefit search engines, people in quiet spaces, and people in a hurry.

Color contrast affects readability on the web and in print. It is especially important for users who are low vision or for users who are colorblind. Good color contrast means all users can see your content no matter the device they’re using or the lighting of their surroundings.

If you struggle to remember alt text:

Bluesky has a setting that will remind you to add alt text before posting any images. Go to "Settings," then "Accessibility." Select the checkbox for "Require alt text before posting."