PUBLIC MARKS from Monique with tag [en]

While those products are important, they don’t meet the same needs that Google Reader was designed to, and Reader should not fall by the wayside, a victim to fashion.

And finally a reminder: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

There has been much discussion, and some arguments, about how to determine the accessibility of websites. Unfortunately, this is often polarised around two simplistic choices: A compliance/conformance based approach that usually involves a checklist of criteria; or, some form of user testing by people who have different disabilities and/or who rely on different assistive technologies. Both approaches have their strength and limitations, and neither can provide a reliable declaration about the accessibility of a site on its own.

This post is a compilation of disability statistics from government agencies and researchers in the US, UK and Canada. The statistics shown have most impact on website use, and help assess the impact of accessibility problems, in terms of numbers of people affected, and likely commercial impact.

CSS3 media queries, which include the browser width variable, are supported by most modern Web browsers. Mobile and desktop browsers that lack support will present a subpar experience to the user unless we step up and take action. I’ll outline some of techniques that developers can follow to address this problem.

The biggest danger is when that demo mentality leaks into production websites.

This article is about how screen readers speak the content added with CSS pseudo-elements :before and :after

Everyone likes an attractive site, whether on a laptop screen, desktop or mobile device. As more and more people are going online via their mobile devices, every smart blogger knows, you’ve got to flow with the tech trends.

We often talk about screen resolution, which is not the relevant statistic when thinking about what space our website's visitors have available. The relevant statistic is browser window size.

In the meantime my advice is to use HTML5 sectioning content elements when they are appropriate, but continue to use h1 - h6 for headings. That way you can safely use the new elements.

a { outline: none; } Don't do it!

The schema.org site makes it appear as if you must pick sides and use Microdata if you want preferential treatment. This is a false choice!

At the moment there’s no real kudos for agencies that meet accessibility requirements. No recognition for complying, public mention of best practice examples or awards for high achievement.

I’m not a huge fan of skip links as a solution for screen reader users on desktop but agree wholeheartedly that visible ones are extremely helpful for sighted keyboard only users who, unlike screen reader users, are forced to tab through content in a linear fashion.

The aim of this article is to inform the reader about accessible services and how to gain access to them. Because some services require specific hardware for their access, we will provide limited descriptions of hardware.

I do not have all the answers and I would love to hear from anyone who can contribute to these ideas.

The short answer is that you can’t. At the time of writing there isn’t a way to reliably detect whether someone visiting your site is using a screen reader (or screen magnifier). You might have heard that Flash will do the trick, but that might not be quite the solution you’re expecting.