This is being posted Monday June 23rd, 2025. On Friday, the 28th, EAA goes into effect. If you haven’t completed your efforts to be completely accessible, I have one piece of advice:
Don’t stop now. Keep working on it.
2 CommentsThe internet is made for consuming content in two main ways:
But the people using the internet don’t all follow the rules and need modifications. One area where we see a lot of modification for customer control is through the text layout. In some cases the issue could be the font, the font weight, or color that makes it difficult to read. Sometimes it’s just the spacing.
1 CommentI’ve been in the tech industry for over two decades. I’ve worked with Java, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript. I have really strong HTML and CSS skills. I know accessibility and how to manage an accessibility program. I talk weekly with executives and attorneys about their legal risks under ADA, EAA, Section 508, and other standards. I guide them on how to make their program robust to mitigate future legal action. And I’m wrong. Often. And I’m willing to admit it every time.
You will make a mistake. Hopefully it is small. But no matter what, it is OK to make mistakes. What matters is how you respond to your mistake. Take ownership. Review your thinking to see what you missed. If you can’t figure it out easily, ask for help.
The number of things I don’t know about in the accessibility space is tremendous.
– Nat Tarnoff
Sometimes the only way to learn something is to fail at it first, or for the 10,000 time. If you fail, own it and work it out. Feel free to fail.
I’m highly trained. I’m highly observant. I think outside the box. Throw whatever corps-speak you want my way, I don’t care. I learn something every day or I try to. The number of things I don’t know about in the accessibility space is tremendous. I’m not a writer, so I’m still learning about content creation. I’m trying to expand my knowledge and I’m sure I’ll never understand it all. And this is good. It drives me. It gives me space to fail. So when I do fail, I can learn, fix, and grow. And the more work you do, the less you will fail in that field.
If someone claims to be an expert and knows all the the things, make a tinfoil hat. This person may be highly skilled, but they have a superiority issue and will be hard to work with. They have hardened opinions on techniques. Even if the best advice has moved on, they stick to the old approaches. You have valid questions and ideas. Changing the “expert’s” mind will be challenging if your ideas and feedback challenges their idea of perfect. They will be less willing to look at new research. They’ll take offense to your opinion and suggestions.
This isn’t mine, I just learned it Thursday night and love it. Thank Kai Wong for it. The first thing is not call someone out. You call them in. If you see someone make a mistake, take them to the side and let them know. Give them the chance to fix it.
But there are some places we don’t get to call them in. Some platforms have a code of conduct that only allows direct, private messages if you get permission publicly first. In those cases, you may have to call them out.
Like I was the other day. I made a mistake and left part of my thinking out of a response. Someone else in the community asked for clarification. This made me revisit the comment. Turns out they were right. I made a mistake. I admitted it, corrected my meaning and thanked them for challenging me.
Keep learning. Challenge the experts. Your input and feedback is important to grow this community. It enhances our understanding of standards. It helps us know where to create new standards and when to throw others out.
Have comments or thoughts on this post, let’s talk about it on LinkedIn or BlueSky.
1 CommentKeep It Silly Simple
I sat down to review some code with my colleagues. It was clear that each of these solutions was heavily over-engineered. Each used custom web components, React, Angular, or other framework, and even basic HTML with aria added. All of them should get slimmed down and work to reduce or remove ARIA.
Comments closedAlong with the <video> element, we also have an <audio> element that works very similarly. However, this particular success criteria isn’t talking about that, at least not exclusively.
Unexpected audio can be quite shocking for users. It doesn’t really matter if the music is a soft ambient melody. It also doesn’t matter if it’s a harsh explosive sound. It can cause issues for the user. For folks who have a sound sensitivity, not being able to control sounds causes problems. This can include persons with ADHD, Autism, hearing issues, vestibular disorders (my personal combo). They may have Hyperacusis (I do), but may not.
Hyperacusis is a disorder of the ear where every day sounds can become problematic. According to WebMD, it is considered “rare” at a rate of 1 in 50 thousand people have it. Tinnitus is a symptom, but you can have that without hyperacusis.
Hyperacusis comes in a few varieties. Loudness hyperacusis is a sensitivity that makes your head and ears feel full that can cause migraines. Pain hyperacusis (noxacusis) is a varietal that induces pain and discomfort to the user when the sound is heard. This often feels like stabbing or pins in the ears. Both occur when the volume of the sound is at a level considered “normal” for most people.
In addition to hyperacusis, your user may have a general intolerance to sounds humans often find annoying. These include car alarms, sirens, and barking, to name a few.
There’s also misophonia and phonophobia. For the most part these are anxiety based reactions that tend to be treated well using CBT style therapy.
Unexpected sounds can be quite problematic for folks. If the sound plays over 3 seconds it needs to have controls to pause or stop it. Avoid using unexpected sounds. Keep the volume reasonable. And it is always best to tie sounds to user action as it can be less shocking.
Have some thoughts? Want to discuss this further? Find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn to chat!
Comments closedWhenever I come across a a violation of 1.3.1, I have a primal need to look deeper. I investigate because I believe if something falls under this success criterion, it is most likely improperly classified. It is extremely important that we understand the relevant context, information and relationships of content. Frequently, I observe that this particular success criterion is misused. It often serves as a catch-all for “Where does this go?”
Per WCAG, 1.3.1 Info and Relationships is:
Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
Cool. We used the original words to define it. I didn’t like third grade English when I was in third grade.
Let’s look at the intent:
The intent of this Success Criterion is to ensure that information and relationships that are implied by visual or auditory formatting are preserved when the presentation format changes. For example, the presentation format changes when the content is read by a screen reader or when a user style sheet is substituted for the style sheet provided by the author.
Now this is better. We’re given a breakdown and example. The intent is to ensure that what is visually indicated as structural, explanatory, and informational is available to everyone. This includes people using different presentation formats.
When talking about structure, it is crucial to distinguish between visual structure and code structure. We need to consider both.
When we look at our mock-up of a page, we want to absorb it visually. Is the most important item in the page grabbing the eye? Does the way it is designed lead you to the next thing you want to say or a primary CTA
(Call to Action)? Take it all in, then we start deciding what HTML elements best represent all those pieces of the page. We begin to think of how we order them. Should it be in a landmark like header, aside, footer, main, or nav? Or is does it need a textual element like headings, anchors, paragraphs, lists, or quotes?
We need to ensure that any information expressed visually is communicated non-visually. If a button is disabled, how do we inform a screen reader user it is disabled? How does a screen reader user know if a Menu is opened? This is the information we should be looking for. In many cases ARIA attributes will be the answers to provide this information.
Under relationships we find little programmatic lines connecting the page together. We might specify via aria-label that the first navigation is the “Primary navigation.” Forms point to a more direct relationship in how we set up labels, inputs, and error messages. Using the label’s “for” attribute we build a relationship of the name and input. Aria-describedby with the ID of an error message is another bridge creating a relationship.
Much of the time these are not errors of information or relationships. They’re a failure of properly using HTML or ARIA. Sometimes both.
In my example of using the landmarks to construct the basic layout, it isn’t a violation. But we didn’t provide an accessible name. That’s a violation of 4.1.2, so why dump it here?
My disabled button? Case of missing aria-disabled, a 4.1.2 issue.
Headings used out of order? Not a WCAG SC.
Headings not sized to their importance? Now you have a 1.3.1 violation! The visual size provides a hierarchy of importance. On the code side we do this with heading elements H1 – H6.
Info and relationships are important on the web. They provide context and details that may not be picked up right away. Anything we do on this account visually needs to be conveyed programmatically too. But that doesn’t mean everything that falls into this bucket belongs. Dumping things in here can harm your clients. You might not provide them enough context to resolve their issues.
Look deeper at the issue. Is it a matter of a screen reader not announcing something? Look at the code, is it missing ARIA? Does it apply to another criteria? Make sure you flag it the right way. And don’t flag it twice, once here and once under the other SC. If it fits under another SC, then fixing it under that criteria will fix it for 1.3.1 as well.
Have a thought, feedback or concern about this article, let’s discuss it on BlueSky or LinkedIn.
Comments closedI love concerts. People performing live music is one of my greatest pleasures. Music is critical to my soul and is beyond crucial for keeping up my mental health.
My wife is less thrilled with concerts, but is always up for a fun time with the right people. Weird Al announced a tour with Puddles Pity Party. Two of our favorite artists. One of the stops is our home town just after our anniversary. One of our closest friends is also a fan and knows Puddles. Off I went looking for tickets!
Checking out the tickets I saw that Ticketmaster and StubHub were selling them. I know that resellers like StubHub tack on additional costs and fees. I do my normal thing and head directly to Ticketmaster instead.
My wife has POTS, so when we go out she is in a wheelchair. I have a vestibular disorder that makes standing for long periods impossible. It is made worse with loud environments and big crowds (Sounds like I shouldn’t go to concerts, huh?). So we can only go to shows that have seating & wheelchair accommodations.
The location they are playing at is mostly general admission to stand on the field. It’s a stadium, so there is some seating. Ticketmaster showed only 1 wheelchair accessible ticket. Most of the seated areas were marked “sold out” a day after release. I decided to check StubHub for those “sold out” areas.
StubHub showed there are tickets in areas where Ticketmaster said tickets were sold out and I’m thinking, “Options!” StubHub does not provide a way to filter for disabled seating!
We went to see Marc Maron last year. I opted to buy, from TicketMaster, an “Accessible seat” on an aisle. Upon arriving to the facility, the accessible seat was a regular seat. No where in the purchase process did it say it wasn’t wheelchair compatible.
The onsite TicketMaster people helped move us to the ONE wheelchair seat as it wasn’t sold. There was only space for one chair and one companion. And of course another wheelchair user showed up and they stuffed them in with us.
I learned from this that even if TicketMaster says there is accessible seating, it may not be wheelchair friendly. And the only way to actually buy accessible tickets is to call the venue.
We aren’t going to see Weird Al or Puddles. The one “accessible” seat won’t work for a wheelchair user.
Comments closedWhen I speak with people about my chronic illness, there is often confusion on it. Many people think, “your pain [or dizziness] is just in your head” and that I can just let it go or ignore it. Yes, my disabilities are invisible, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t very real. When we meet people who are deaf, we can’t see what is physically wrong with them, but we believe them when they say they can’t hear us. Why don’t we believe people with other disabilities?
While at a meeting recently with a group of parents, we conducted a mindfulness exercise. We meditated on an itch we had on our body. The goal was to sit with the stress an itch can produce and yet not let it bother us. We couldn’t scratch it either. For some parents, the itch went away. Others let it bother them. I enjoyed the sensation, but then I think I have an unfair disadvantage that the group leader knows about and agreed.
One of the parents was curious, and since I’m not exactly shy about speaking of my disabilities, I expanded on it being chronic pain and dizziness. This father blew off my feelings and experience right away saying “It’s all in you head” meaning that I was making it up. I countered that it is in my head, but very real and that if I could wish it away I would in fact to do that.
This began a discussion that had me communicating in a way that seemed to connect with the other parents. If you have seen my talk, UX of Stairs, you have heard me mention the idea of human hardware and software. We are all really complex computers. We are made up of two main systems that are fairly standard.
The first is our hardware. We are all initially connected with the components needed to grow our biological hardware the same, but due to environmental changes, sometimes that hardware doesn’t develop the way it should. After birth we encounter a gigantic world that too is going to influence our hardware. But for the most part we are born with 5 input systems (5 senses), and two output systems (oral and physical).
We also come with a base operating system. One that turns the hardware on and keeps it running. It can take input and translate it to output. But most importantly it can learn. It can combine the input with algorithms we call emotions and creates a new output that is a subclass that we call art. And art comes in many forms. For some it is a visual output like drawing and painting, others produce auditory output like music or language, and still there is the expansion of the core physical output in the form of dance or sports. With training, anyone can process any input through emotions and produce any of these types of output, but for some it comes more naturally than others.
Once in a while you encounter something in your life that affects your software just as it could affect your hardware. This could be a happy event, or perhaps a traumatic one. This experience alters your input, output, or algorithms in such a way that when you experience it again (or something that reminds you of it), your reaction won’t be the same as someone sitting next to you who hasn’t shared that experience.
For some people, this event can simply be suffering lots of pain. Over time, you develop a tolerance for that pain. Sometimes, you are stubborn, like me, and try to move through it when you can’t make it go away. Additionally, your hardware, nerves in this case, may be more or less sensitive causing the input, not the algorithm, to give you a different tolerance.
My dizziness is a matter of my software being rewritten. The vestibular system is made up of our inner ear system, ocular system, and our sense of spatial awareness. Together these form a kind of internal gyroscope. Thousands of points of data are coming in through these systems every second of every day. Your brain needs to clean that data up and process it.
You subconsciously apply a filter to the incoming data and remove the outliers and extremes. This reduces the data to an average that can be easier to work with. I think this is how my algorithm actually works, except that my filter needs new parameters of what to filter. Right now, it doesn’t filter much. A couple years ago, somehow my settings loaded a new configuration file that turned the filter off completely. Over the last 30 months, I’ve been slowly adding them back in through experience and direct training. This makes sense to me as I have been able to slowly tolerate more experiences.
So what happens when my filter is broken? Imagine you are making coffee in the morning. You have your filter in the pot with the coffee in. As you start to pour the water in it strains through the coffee first, then the paper. But the coffee and the paper can only take so much water at a time. If we pour too fast we begin to see the water backup, the coffee grounds float, and eventually the water/coffee combo flow over the sides of the pot. This is what is going in my head. With too much stimuli or when a filter isn’t working properly, I simply can not digest the data coming in. Something will get lost and a mess follows.
Most of the time this means I experience aphasia. Aphasia comes in two forms, receptive and expressive. Receptive aphasia means I literally won’t know what you are saying or doing (usually words). I won’t recognize the sounds, or that they are in fact words. Any I do catch will not register their meaning. “In one ear, out the other.” is probably the best description of this.
Expressive aphasia is when I’m the one doing the communicating. Typically I stop in the middle of a thought or sentence. I’ll wave my hands wildly and move my mouth, but nothing other than gibberish comes out. I can see the concept right in front of me, but I lack the proper words to express it.
While technically the software is in my head, anyone who has tried to program anything (even a VCR clock), knows that it isn’t always as simple as forgetting the current settings and putting in new ones. With learning systems, we can’t delete those files, otherwise we corrupt the whole system. We must slowly reteach things to overwrite the current configuration. The algorithm will never be the same as the original as it always retains the history of what it previously learned, but with enough training, we can get close to the original. This is my hope.
Humans aren’t copies of each other. We are each unique in our hardware and software. The next time you meet someone whose software isn’t running the same as yours, instead of blowing them off, take a moment and try to understand how and why they process things differently. It will help you empathize and understand them. It will also help you expand your algorithms to make you a better person and technologist.
Comments closedSociety has many ills. People are fallible and get themselves addicted to unhealthy things all the time. It may be overeating, under-eating, gambling, alcohol, or drugs, but each of these people is dealing with a pain that their particular addiction gives a little bit of relief from. We recognize that these addictions are diseases; we spend millions a year advertising and partaking in various treatments for them. We recognize that people who have these addictions need to take life a day at a time; there is no magic wand for addiction. It is a constant struggle. But many of these addictions are just covering what the real problem is, mental health. As a society we don’t talk about mental illness. We don’t admit that is too is a disease that takes a daily fight and this needs to change.
I’m sure you’ve heard it before, “Depression is hell”. Depression is a deep dark cavern that makes it hard to see the good happening around you. It can be all consuming and weigh you down like an anchor. We look for the light, but too often we can’t see it. But everyone experiences their depression a little differently. I want to describe my depression, because I’ve experienced a lot of it, and it gets reflected in everything I do in one way or another. I can’t speak to all mental health issues, I can only speak to mine. Hopefully by sharing, you will learn what I deal with. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can’t. What matters though is that you take me seriously, as well as all others with mental health issues. Respect them and don’t judge them.
I tend to think of myself as a rational person. I have a degree in philosophy and enjoy a hearty debate. I excel in logic problems and write code for a living. I work well through puzzles, yet I am at the same time quite emotional. Every moment of every day I have to make a decision on whether to listen to my emotional heart or my rational mind and they are usually in conflict.
When things are good, like when I fall in love, it becomes very hard to discern between my heart and mind. They want the same thing. My heart is a solid rocket booster burning furiously in just a few moments, while my mind is the long lasting candle you are glad you packed for the tornado kit. I have to choose, and usually fail, to slow things down and take one step at a time. Since both heart and mind want the same thing, the heart usually wins and I get consumed in the flames. Typically, this means something else gets ignored. My health, house, family, or friends are the most likely culprits. If I could follow my mind a little more, I could have it all.
When things are bad, and they usually are bad, it is a lot easier to see, but harder to follow the right path. The dark thoughts range from worry about money, weather, or health to unidentifiable panic and self-harm. Very few of these thoughts deserve any merit. Most are nonsensical to begin with and can be quickly forgotten when I’m healthy. A few, like worries about money, are legitimate concerns exaggerated by my unhealthy thoughts. When carefully examined, they are easily dealt with. And while I say I can forget, reason, or ignore things, what often happens is I clench onto them like a kraken around a whale. It’s this grasping and holding that turns into the depressive spiral. I get tunnel vision and only see this one problem, ignorant to all the good in my surroundings.
I tend to be a hypochondriac, which sucks, but sucks even more when you have actual health problems without solutions and cures from doctors. I also get really lonely. I have a full house, two kids and three cats, and lots of people who care about me, but that doesn’t change the fact I get lonely. In the flick of a switch, I can feel like the last person on the planet, while having a conversation with someone sitting right in front of me. Working from home and only interacting with people in a digital realm doesn’t make this easier, but my physical health precludes me from working in an office every day.
I think about suicide a lot. I have since I was a kid. I’ve tried to take my life several times in the past. I plan not to do it again. This is a very important statement. It isn’t that I don’t plan to kill myself, but I specifically plan NOT to commit suicide. I have no desire to die. I want to live, watch my kids grow up, travel the world, help people build better technology, and make beautiful art. I want to climb mountains, hang out with my brother, sister-in-law, nice and nephews, maybe even relearn to surf. It doesn’t matter though. Every day, sometimes every hour, sometimes every minute, I have a thought of suicide. When I’m having a bad day, especially if I’m in a lot of pain, I am in a constant struggle of having a suicidal thought and letting it go. Medication only takes the edge off so that I win these battles more than lose.
I use meditation as a practice to learn to let go thoughts. Focus on the breathing. When a thought comes in on something other than my breath, acknowledge it and let it go. This takes focused effort. When I’m depressed they don’t just go away. My heart requires justification before it lets go. This means half my time and mental energy is spent debating my inner self, just to keep moving forward. Think about that. Think about how much time you spend on solving a problem and then try to solve that same problem if every other second you had to argue with someone about a completely pointless and random thing. It becomes really hard to get into a flow space for solving hard problems with this going on.
Meditation for me, and while I know a lot of folks who have had it work for them, it will not work for everyone. I still get into a funk periodically, but most days are better now. I know I can ride out the dark times, but many people with depression can’t.
Depression isn’t something to “just get over” for most people. Don’t say this to anyone. It shows a clear lack of understanding of what they are going through and a lack of compassion for them as an individual.
Depression is a daily struggle. Some of us have the upper hand on our depression right now, but I can assure that many will eventually slip, needing more understanding, and maybe some help some time in the future. Others are in the heat of the battle and are losing. They can’t break the cycle of bad thoughts. They need understanding, patience, and when they ask for it, help. You can’t force someone into accepting help, so don’t even try. No matter what you do, if they aren’t ready for it, it won’t stick. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call for help if they are hurting themselves or others. There is emergency help and long term help. If a person is a threat, emergency services need to be brought in, no questions.
One in five people struggle with mental illness every year. Twenty percent. More people suffer with mental illness than smoke cigarettes. This isn’t some small group we can cast out. These are your neighbors, friends, lovers, parents, cousins and children. Break the stigma and taboo. Talk about it openly and acknowledge that it is a disease that people struggle with daily. More people have mental health issues than breast cancer every year, yet we talk about it less and spend less money fighting it. It is up to you to be compassionate, patient, offer an ear when you can, but always give someone suffering from mental health the same respect as anyone else.
Comments closedBut we do it to ourselves. I battle imposter syndrome every day. In fact I made a distinct decision back in 2009 to “fake it until I make it”. I got fired for poor performance (I was severely depressed at the time which affected my work). While out of work in a down economy, I specifically put on a new outward face that would pretend to be someone I’m not to land a job.
The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel – Steven Furtick
I didn’t lie about my skills or abilities. I was actually quite humble about them. I didn’t lie about my background or education. It just wasn’t in my nature. What I did was pretend I was outgoing. I pretended I had something to talk about. I pretended I was interested in other people.
And it worked. I got a new job. I established myself as someone who cared about my team, and thus became a leader. I got on stage and presented my ideas to people. I taught others what I knew. Over the last six years I have turned that decision to fake it into quite a successful career. I’ve been invited to talk at conferences throughout the United States and even in Scotland. I’ve gotten to meet and work with some of my industry heroes. I get to hang out in Slack channels and tweet with people whose knowledge I built my career on (and they know who I am!). Something else happened, something I didn’t expect, I actually enjoy these things, have the skills, and I am interested in people.
But everyday, every time I try to do something, I feel it creeping in the back of my brain, “You don’t belong here. You don’t deserve it. You didn’t write a book. You don’t blog enough. They’re humoring you.” Its the voice of my lack of confidence. I was shy and bullied a lot when I was growing up. It is embedded in my psyche that I am insignificant.
I have a rational brain though. I can look at my history and see the success I achieved at other jobs, popularity in my blog posts, and the fact I keep getting invited to join groups of experts or to talk. I am skilled. I am successful. Yet the imposter syndrome still nags. I know I am not alone in this.
We need to stop comparing ourselves to others. Look inside and figure out what makes you happy and do it. I really like speaking and meeting others, so I’m trying to do more of it (need a speaker? Email me.). I like writing, so I’m working on a bunch of tutorials that could become a book with the right editor. I’m asking you to do the same, no, I’m begging you to find what you love.
Success is not what society tells us. You don’t need to own a home (I want to sell mine), or a fancy car. You don’t need millions in the bank. You just need to do what makes you happy.
I like to make art (but I’m way out of practice), I’d like to learn the guitar again, I want to travel the world, and I want to teach others (not just tech stuff either). So over the next two years I’m going to be focusing on setting up my life to do these things. Why two years you ask? Well, I have two kids in high school, I want to let them graduate before I sell the house and start traveling. Will you decide what makes you happy and try to set yourself up for that life?
Comments closed
