Categories
Accessibility Activism Usability

Biden’s Administration makes accessibility a priority.

It’s not something that makes top headlines, but the official White House website and some others have undergone a significant change to make them more accessible. This is an exciting and necessary change that reverses Trumps efforts to minimize and downplay the necessity of accessible experiences. The Biden Administration has brought accessibility into focus. This […]

Categories
Accessibility Techniques Usability

UI Placement in Content

It comes up sometimes in my work about where to place UI within content. There are some simple guiding principles that we should adhere to when placing UI within the content. These are best practices, as with all best practices, there are sometimes rare exceptions to the rule. Place UI that controls or interacts with […]

Categories
Accessibility Low Vision Usability Vision

How High Contrast Mode works

This is just a quick primer on how Windows High Contrast Mode (HCM) works. It is not exhaustive, but should give you a base understanding. Basically, text, border and background colors are replaced. They are not removed, which is a pretty common misconception. Colors At a very simple level, High Contrast Mode replaces all of […]

Categories
Low Vision Techniques Usability Vision

Accessible High Contrast Logos

A lot of companies that I encounter use logos and images against a transparent background. This works well for them in most cases, because they can determine the color of the background that the logo image is placed against. One area where this can be a problem is in Windows High Contrast mode (HCM). That […]

Categories
Accessibility Cognitive Techniques Uncategorized Usability WCAG Concepts

Reducing Motion

Using motion on your website can be helpful for some and harmful to others. There’s a delicate balance that should be considered when creating a website that includes motion. Animations, or blinking and moving content can quickly shift from helpful to harmful in the blink of an eye. This topic affects me personally for two […]

Categories
Accessibility Usability

Is there a minimum font size?

From a compliance perspective, WCAG and other standards are silent on this issue. What they do indicate is that fonts must be able to be resized or manipulated to meet the users unique needs. That leaves us with a bit of a problem, because a 1 pixel x 1 pixel (px) font would pass WCAG. […]