Conversations around web accessibility
Short discussions with disabled people about the barriers they encounter on the web. Hear about web accessibility in our own words!
Julieanne says when she’s information seeking, trying to accomplish a task, movement on the screen, that is not something that she causes to happen or choose to happen can absolutely derail her.
Tori points out that using speech input like Dragon Naturally Speaking is hard when there’s no visual label, or the visual label doesn’t match the programmatic label.
She also says that developers need to understand that assistive technology users is a category of users that encompass more than just screen reader users.
Ted explains how using switch inputs, such as the Darcy USB keyboard, can take a lot longer than other input methods. He also tells us to properly label and markup interactive elements!
Dr. Ellen Spertus explains that it’s easy to make mistakes on a password field and a “show password” feature is critical to accessibility.
Holly Schroeder says she navigates away immediately if a page is too busy. Too much stimuli overwhelms her. She can’t process the information properly, and that interferes with her ability to complete what she was trying to do in the first place!
Holly Schroeder explains that when a touch target is too small she may not be able to complete a task because she doesn’t have the fine motor control to tap her finger on the right area of the screen.
Julia Ferraioli says if you’re already dealing with blurry vision, making something blurry bigger, isn’t necessarily going to help that much.
Michael thinks the most important thing that we fail to do on a daily basis is talking with people with disabilities or talking with the users in general.
Alex points out that if we make processes more complex for users, they aren’t likely to be able to finish things, or complete them properly.
JL tells us about sites that don’t make it easy to avoid mistakes, and don’t handle mistakes well, make it hard for folks who are dyslexic.
