#accessibility
In Ireland more than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on the State Examinations Commission to introduce extra time for dyslexic students. #Accessibility #Dyslexia #axschat #Education
https://www.newstalk.com/news/dyslexic-students-need-extra-time-in-leaving-cert-fine-gael-1471860
Hackaday Prize 2023: Bluetooth Spell To Speak - Have you ever known what you wanted to say but couldn’t figure out exactly how to ... - https://hackaday.com/2023/06/06/hackaday-prize-2023-bluetooth-spell-to-speak/ #2023hackadayprize #bluetoothkeyboard #capacitivesensing #thehackadayprize #accessibility #medicalhacks #esp32-s2 #esp32
In the past month we’ve had 2 separate overlay companies approach our leadership teams regarding their plugins. Doing my best to stand our ground and fend them off.
Now that I've had a couple of days to think about #VisionOS and #VisionPro, I'm contemplating writing a detailed post on some of the implications for #accessibility. There were quite a few questions answered. Some still remain. What say you?
If I do this, I need to check on the status of my web site. Inaugural post, may be?
Just a reminder that rideshare services need to be held more accountable for their poor showing on rider security and assisting passengers with disabilities. Here is a Washington Post story from April about a blind judge whose Lyft driver refused to take his service animal in the vehicle. Great job by NFB to focus on this issue, but I wonder if we need to better publicize our own NFB complaint hotline to report these issues?!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/04/20/blind-ride-share-guide-dogs/
#NFB #disability #accessibility #Lyft #uber
Now to the feature that more than one of you have asked me about. That is, using the camera to read panels by pointing fingers at buttons on appliances.
Other than the fact that it's using the Arabic voice to speak in English, which is terrible, the feature works rather well. They need to iron out a couple of bugs there. In a way, it's quite funny. I'll try to do a couple of demos of these things tomorrow if I have time.
To conclude this #VisionPro #accessibility recap from the video, there are multiple considerations for accessible apps including excellent quality captioning for spoken content. And spacial awareness of captions and sounds will need to be ensured by developers. In short, turn on these options through accessibility settings and see how your app behaves. Use SwiftUI frameworks if possible. Use accessibility audits when developing your apps. IN short, make your apps accessible.
Even though I am no longer a journalist, I'd like to spotlight some accounts doing great reporting on the #Accessibility features in Apple's new stuff! Check out @ppatel and @TheQuinbox as well as shoutout to @devinprater for, like, filing bugs too! Check out all these people and others doing the work out here making sure we all are informed about the accessibility of all this new stuff! And then relax with one of my steamy Pokemon FanFiction! LOL!
#accessibility features include inputs to accommodate people who use alternative input. The Dwel control accessibility features allows an alternative set of gestures for motor/physical disabilities without using hands. It includes, tap, scroll, long-press, and ddrag. Think of this as no different than inputs like game controllers. Pointer control will also be available instead of eye tracking. Head movement, wrist position or index finger as alternatives.
Devs will need to be especially aware of motion in #VisionPro apps since reduced animation option is available for #accessibility purposes. Alternatives will be needed for reduced motion, zooming motion effects, rapid rotation effects, etc. APIs and notifications will be available. Using cross-fading could help.
Anchors are important for Zoom users. Depending on how they're used, they could impact partially sighted users. certain anchors will need to be avoided so that low vision users can get closer to objects with Zoom to identify and read. Positioning the Zoom lense to read head anchors might be difficult.
Voiceover gestures will also rely on multiple pinches, holds, and multiple fingers, all pretty seemingly simple for now.
Devs will need to be aware of dynamic type issues as well as contrast ratios.
New concepts for spacial computing. Anchors can be used to position objects relative to other objects, relative to hand, or other things in the world. Things can also be anchored to the camera so that it appears on the same spots oon displays. Content follow your head.
Developers will need to do a couple of things differently or provide additional information like spacial awareness to Voiceover users on #VisionOS apps. It also includes gesture recognition announcements for direct gestures. System actions will allow additional capabilities. It will be necessary to make announcements about important events in your apps such as entering a room, or object showing up and its position. Think games.
Switching on Voiceover on #VisionPro turns off normal gestures to avoid the system confusing the user. There is a new direct gesture mode, however, that will enable developers to allow #blind people to interact with apps and actions. We'll be able to choose if we want to invoke the direct gesture mode. If an app is developed well, this will be like direct touch. I suspect it might be used more here though.
As I'm trying to simulate these gestures by putting my hands on my lap, turning up my palms, and bringing various fingers together, I'm finding the interaction quite natural and faster than on a slab of glass. Since I don't have to hold anything, it could be very efficient.
Every once in a while, I think about the fact that there are multiple job application websites out there, who use an image without alt text, to list the examples of disabilities the government recognizes.
Like, its a dick move at all to embed a bunch of important text in an image *at all*, but to do it for the disability section? That's just extra fucked up.
The crown will allow you to assign a shortcut to the #accessibility option of your your choice. Tripple tap it on the #VisionPro device to launch.
Reality Kit has a new accessible component, which allows the assigning of accessibility properties. There are custom labels, values, and traits as well as custom rotors, custom actions, and custom content. Activate and ajustable system actions can also be assigned.
#WWDC WWDC23
Allright then, Here are some details about how #accessibility will work on #VisionPro.
#Voiceover has its own gestures similar to iOS.
* Pinch with thumb and index finger with the right hand to move forward (equivalent to flick right).
* use the thumb and the middle finger to pinnch in order to move back (equivalent to flick left).
* Pinch with thumb and ring finger on the right hand or thumb and index finger on the left to select (equivalent to double tap).
Don't Update Acrobat Pro Today!
Over on the WebAIM Mailing List [1], folks have flagged a serious bug in today's update that messes up your alt text when you convert from #Word to #PDF.
Bevi Chagnon recommends turning off auto-updates and sticking with the previous version, (build 23.001.xxxx) until the bug is fixed.
You can check your version by going to Help -> About in Acrobat Pro for Windows.
Apple is truly making the betas available to everyone. So I'll remind you again not to install betas, no matter how stable you think they are, on primary devices. That said, iOS 17 betas are remarkably stable. Things could change. I've seen things breaking down in subsequent betas based on what I've seen. I'm not surprised about the stability in this release since most features are nothing major unlike iOS 16. Same re iPad OS and Mac OS.
Just be careful!
Anyone has an experience with #TPLink #Tapo #SmartPlugs from a #blindness perspective? is the #TapoApp #Accessible on #Android? I am looking to buy one and use with my #GoogleNestMini. #Accessibility #A11Y #Blind #Talkback
I had a lot of reactions to scented products last week. Bad reactions. Met with health care provider today to get test results from hospital back, revamp coping strategies, and start process for referral to another specialist (local is booked 3 years out). One of the brochures mentioned "advocating for yourself" three times in two pages!
Please #ScentFree EVERYTHING
I am exhausted and I like breathing.
#Laundry #HairCare #CleaningProducts #Accessibility #WashDay #Shampoo
I can't wait to see what's going to happen in the relm of #accessibility this year at #WWDC23. I am very impressed with #apple right now.
I’ve been hearing so many good things about the accessibility of Diablo IV. I’m tempted to buy it, even though it lacks navigational assistance. #accessibility #gaming
Apple Vision Pro could be incredibly useful for people with vision disabilities — it could describe what’s in front of the user, help find features like doorways and stairs, enhance contrast of the world, read or enlarge text.
Much opportunity for genuinely benefitting people!
Holy moly! VoiceOver is indeed on Apple Vision Pro, and a ton of other accessibility features, and they seem to have thought this through quite thoroughly. This #WWDC presentation shows how to make a game accessible, and it even introduces some of the basic gestures VoiceOver on Apple Vision Pro uses. https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10034
So I could see myself using MacOS. But my goodness, I can't tell y'all just how versatile Windows and its screen readers are. Like with just NVDA, I can access Win32 and web apps, and CLI apps, both on Windows and Linux through WSL. Using Windows Subsystem for Android and WSA's screen reader, which is a forked version of TalkBack set to speak using OneCore TTS, I can access Android apps. When TalkBack decides to work in WSL, I can access Linux apps. So like, that covers desktop, web, mobile, CLI, and Linux desktop. Oh and Emacs, can't forget Emacspeak which is another environment on its own! Oh and all this is on a single computer powered by an AMD chip. No custom Microsoft chip required, since it works on Intel chips too.
On the other hand, Mac requires VoiceOver for desktop, and web if VO decides to play nice, TDSR for the terminal, cause VO isn't quite there with Terminal access especially in programs like Vim or even ping since VO interupts itself all the time. And iPad apps work with VO, on an M1 or later Mac. No Intel support for that one. Now, I know that MacOS accessibility is, for lack of a better word, tightened to work with stuff like auto-correct and spell checking system wide, and the rotor in apps that support it is very nice. But the screen reader is gonna need a lot more love for me to find that I no longer need a PC.
iOS 17 Beta: the "Listen to Page" Feature on Safari is fantastic! Select the "Page settings" button on any webpage, select the "Start listening" option, and, after a ding, Siri, via its high-quality online AI-powered voices, will start reading the contents of the page. You can come here to pause/resume listening or, better than that, on the Lock screen move backwards or forwards through text. This is Apple's take at a feature Google Assistant has been offering for a while.
#Accessibility
And, I just watched the session that looks at #VisionOS #accessibility details. It's really really good. I'll come back with notes.
The more I use iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, the more I suspect that the automatic image descriptions feature has gotten an upgrade. I'm getting better descriptions than I was in iOS 16. I don't think it's my imagination. Could others confirm this? I'll have to set up scenarios where I get descriptions from the same source with both OS'. I think this could be fun or tedius. For now, I'll take it as fun.
Greetings to all #JavaScript #HTML #CSS #SVG #HTTP #Accessibility #webdev #mdn developers and enthusiasts.
I'm a bot, and every sixth hour I'll randomly pick an article for you from 'mdn web docs'¹.
Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed², see my GitHub repo³ for any other options and information.
Live long and prosper 🖖
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web
[2] https://botsin.space/@randomMDN.rss
[3] https://github.com/jaandrle/randomMDN
Alt Text Question:
Take a still from a film. It features a bunch of particulars: actor, playing a part, on a set (or on location, in a place).
Sighted people can see these particulars, and so have a chance to read our still image in the context of other things involving them. They don't just see "woman riding carriage".
So the question: If we're already on board with doing alt text at all, and know the particulars, isn't it more helpful to use them than generic descriptors?
another day, another #accessibility issue
Link colors provide contextual value. They tell you that this text is different from that text, and that it's probably interactive.
If you get rid of that, it's impossible to tell something is a link. Yes, you can underline it, but underlining text is something we've been doing for hundreds of years as a form of emphasis.
Removing that not only makes it harder to know what I can do with your page, BUT it also breaks accessibility tools.
1/2
How do you think about #accessibility in 3d, immersive spaces?! This talk has you covered, from two of my favorite humans too: Dan and @DrewHaas! https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10034
How do you think about #accessibility in 3d, immersive spaces?! This talk has you covered, from two of my favorite humans too! https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10034
This has been, already, a powerful #WWDC23 for me. Seeing the work from #accessibility in the SoTU definitely got me to tear up. As we move into a world with a new and deeply visual platform, Apple is once again pushing the industry forward by prioritizing its accessibility.
Looking through a couple of interesting API additions from #WWDC related to #accessibility.
If your app has a custom video player--I'm looking at you the app formerly known as HBO Max, you can automatically detect flashing lights and dim them.
“Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.2 is a W3C Recommendation”
https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/9942
On Twitter but not on @w3c or @wai yet:
https://twitter.com/w3c/status/1665964035492249601
several of the #Blind #Reddit apps that are going to be affected by the new third-party API pricing structure are also going dark on June 12.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/5/23749188/reddit-subreddit-private-protest-api-changes-apollo-charges
a11y #Accessibility
Full list of #accessibility.
VoiceOver
Braille
Audio Descriptions
Support Per-App Settings
Zoom
Dynamic Type
Reduce Transparency
Reduce White Point
Color Filters
Bold Text
Voice Control
Spoken Content
Background Sounds
Pointer Control
Dwell Control
Button Shapes
Accessibility Shortcut
AssistiveTouch
MFi Hearing Devices
Subtitles and Closed Captions
Switch Control
Full Keyboard Access
Image Descriptions
Guided Access
Reduce Motion
Left/Right Balance
Mono Audio
The full #accessibility story for the #VisionOS and the #VisionPro initial device is far more impressive than I'd imagined. Then again I shouldn't be surprised. Even if Apple has a checkered past about maintaining some of the features properly as they should, they do have an ethos of making products fully accessible from the start. The list of accessibility features supported out of the box on these new devices is in the next post, which I gathered from the State of the Union.
Spoke with my @freedomscientific colleagues - Chrome team acted super quick to fix! 👏
Update Chrome to Resolve JAWS Issues
https://blog.freedomscientific.com/update-chrome-to-resolve-jaws-issues/
😑 Still a problem in Edge and apps that use the rendering engine:
Edge 114 Update Silences WebView Content in Microsoft Applications with JAWS
https://blog.freedomscientific.com/edge-114-update-silences-webview-content-in-microsoft-applications-with-jaws/
The ‘Web #Accessibility Guidance Project’ from the 🇳🇿 #NewZealand #Government - https://govtnz.github.io/web-a11y-guidance/.
I particularly like the way this resource has been broken down into specific #A11Y roles/responsibilities (e.g. for #UserResearch here > https://govtnz.github.io/web-a11y-guidance/roles/user-research/) 🙂
“WCAG 2.2 misses mark on defining visible focus *sigh*”
https://yatil.net/blog/wcag22-visible-focus
Hits the two SCs (one draft, one not) best positioned to make focus generally less crap.
Given how often I have seen how stronger focus would benefit users, I get the grump.
A set of videos about Creating accessible online mathematics and statistics notes from last month's workshop now free to view - student perspectives, working with diagrams, figures and images, and software for creating notes containing maths notation.
http://talmo.uk/2023/accessiblemaths.html #accessibility #a11y
I'll be eager to watch tthe #WWDC session that discusses the ability for developers to conduct accessibility audits in their own apps. It's one of the 7 #accessibility sessions.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xctest/xcuiapplication/4191487-performaccessibilityaudit
I don't know much about this area so I might have this wrong, but this seems comparable and its $3,395 plus the cost of an ipad Pro
https://www.inclusivetlc.com/skyle-for-ipad-pro
#accessibility
There's a lot to criticise/make fun of with #Apple #VisionPro but it could be very useful in terms of #accessibility with its eye tracking UI
As I suspected, Voiceover will be on the #VisionPro device and we'll be able to use the finger as a pointer rather than eyes. Now we just need to know how authentication will work.
Speaking of authentication and signing into devices, one of the features that Apple didn't discuss for iOS/iPad OS was the ability to signin to a new device if you have nearby devices already signed in.
Day 226. If your app lets the user share images, consider implementing the possibility for them to add an alt text for the image, so it can be used as an accessibility label when consumed by other users. Twitter or Slack have nice flows for doing this.
The instability I'd reported for Siri voices was nothing more than growing pains for the initial dev beta release. Some people might have seen the original Siri voices that were incredibly large, over 350 MB in size. After a little while, the new Siri voices showed up for download. As far as I can tell, these are all under 70 MB in size. They are quite responsive. I've tested the American ones for now.
I'll create audio demos later in the day.
"To <span> or not to <span> that is the question." A common & ongoing debate in the world of web #accessibility is whether or not it’s important to use <span> tags instead of <i> tags because <i> tags degrade the accessibility of a website. Is this true? 🤔https://blog.fontawesome.com/accessibility-and-i-tags/
Using <i> is an abuse of HTML semantics, but it doesn’t result in any accessibility problems that would adversely affect users under most circumstances. (There are caveats, of course.) Read @claviska 's take on the issue. https://blog.fontawesome.com/accessibility-and-i-tags/ #accessibility