I wrote the accessibility book I needed 17 years ago when I made my career shift to focus on disability and accessibility. In 2004, I was struggling with a miserable career. I finished law school in 1997. I spent a…
2021 accessibility predictions
Yeah, machine learning and personalization made the list, but I also have a couple of other thoughts. It’s time for the annual “Year-End” accessibility predictions. Machine Learning Machine learning is going to continue to be exceptionally important to the advancement…
Starting a new accessibility remediation project?
Marie Kondo’ing the project first will get you to your goal faster. Yay, you finally convinced someone to prioritize remediating an inaccessible website. What could possibly go wrong? </snark> There are approaches and prioritization that will make your end goal…
What people with disabilities hope to see in a Biden Presidency
After four years of ridicule and inattention to PwDs being completely normalized, the future is looking slightly brighter. My first presidential countdown clock started January 20, 2017, the day President Trump took office. My expectations of disability rights stagnating during his…
Your first attempt at making anything accessible will be awful
Don’t use this as an excuse. Even awful is better than 98 % of what other people are doing. My primary goal in life is to convince people to make things accessible, which is defined as making products and services…
An open letter to the Medium powers-that-be on accessibility
The new design changes are pretty, but the experience for people with disabilities using assistive technology is still quite poor, especially for authors. Accessibility is the ability of people with disabilities to use software or consume information equally to people…
Cookie banners and accessibility
Yes, these do matter, especially if you are using a cookie banner to handle your privacy disclosures, super especially if you can be sued in California. What is a cookie? Cookies are small text files created by a website that…
Accessibility and Design Thinking don’t work together automatically
Here are some strategies to make sure PwDs are not excluded. Note that this article does not address the question “should you be using Design Thinking at all?” — there are two very distinct camps on opposite ends of the…
How to discuss accessibility during a design/UI/UX interview or portfolio review
There are a gazillion articles on how to do a good job reviewing your design portfolio. None of them talk about accessibility. Portfolio reviews are the penultimate step in the design/UI/UX interview process. It’s a chance to show your work,…
Why US law effectively mandates all software design be responsive
Your employer/client can spend a lot of time and money on lawsuits and rework if you don’t follow this one simple rule. Smashing Magazine defines “responsive design” as an approach where design responds to the user’s behavior and environment based on…