Welcome to the Talent Lab Tech Notes blog! Explore tips, perspectives, and news from our team of accessibility and usability experts and AFB Talent Lab participants in this collection of articles that’s updated monthly.
As a blind software developer and accessibility specialist who has been using a screen reader for 14 years, I can say that learning how to effectively use a screen reader can feel daunting. In fact, many who are new to understanding digital accessibility may not even know exactly what a screen reader is or how it works.
Screen reader software presents computer content verbally through audio or through braille displays. This software achieves this by taking the computer’s content, which may not necessarily be presented in a linear format visually, and transforming it to a form where every piece of content is either before or after the next. This forms a navigable document with which screen reader users can interact, eliminating the need for a monitor or display.
If you’ve been anywhere on the internet, you’ve encountered accessibility issues. While you might have not noticed them, they’re everywhere. But why are they so common?
Even though sometimes there are explicit decisions made which deprioritize accessibility, we never assume that there's ill intent when we encounter issues. Generally, the problem is lack of awareness coupled with inexperience, which go hand-in-hand.
As a blind accessibility tester with 16 years of screen reader experience, the most frequent accessibility issue I encounter while using and testing digital assets on both mobile and web platforms is the violation of the “Name, Role, Value” guideline, which often poses some serious challenges to screen reader users as it essentially makes navigation a guessing game.
Website accessibility overlays are becoming increasingly common because of the quick and easy accessibility fix they are often promised to provide. However, they not only fail to serve assistive technology users with an effective user experience but also fail to protect website owners from litigation, which is often a principle premise for their usage. At the AFB Talent Lab, we strongly recommend that you do not use any third-party scripts to try to fix your site’s underlying accessibility issues.
Managing focus on a web page is a very common accessibility issue. “Focus,” in this sense, refers to the element on the screen that is currently active or selected. It specifies where the user is currently located on the web page.
Screen readers have a specific key command to tell what the currently focused element is. Moving before and after the element also gives a sense of structure and the element’s order on the page.
Videos have quickly become a popular online medium, being regularly consumed by millions of people around the world engaging with information on a daily basis. And with that comes the challenge of ensuring everyone can easily access the content without missing any information that might only be presented visually.
It is normal to ignore learning about things that you believe don’t directly apply to you. Do you know how to perfectly balance an egg on a stick? Or maybe how to accurately type into your phone with your hands on your back? Probably not, because you probably have never had to. And you probably won’t learn it either, because, well, why would you? But some skills may actually come in more handy than you might initially think. When it comes to accessibility, for example, everyone benefits and you don't have to be a dedicated accessibility expert to make a difference.
Did you know that your smartphone can talk? As accessibility professionals, sometimes we take certain knowledge for granted. We assume people have a baseline awareness of what "accessibility" is, and we spend our time advocating for more inclusively designed apps and websites. But sometimes we skip over one of the most basic questions: how can a person who is blind use a smartphone?
There’s a game which has recently been gaining popularity called Block Quiz. It is a trivia/association game where characters from all sorts of media are transformed into simplified color blocks. There’s also a variation for brands. The goal is to see how many characters or brands you can identify in a set amount of time based solely on their blocked colors. It became so popular, in fact, that it was turned into an Instagram Filter. Needless to say, as someone who is colorblind, I didn’t partake in the trend.