Elementos nativos de HTML que mejoran la accesibildiad

En Cool native HTML elements you should already be using se presentan algunos elementos nativos de HTML que no requieren montañas de código adicional y que, si son aceptados por el navegador web, deberían mejorar la accesibilidad de las páginas web:

I’m constantly surprised by the native HTML spec. New features are regularly added, and I often stumble on existing, handy elements. While often not as versatile as their JS counterparts, using them avoids bloating your app with extra Javascript libraries or CSS hacks.

If this article helps just a single developer avoid an unnecessary Javascript dependency, I’ll be happy. Native HTML can handle plenty of features that people typically jump straight to JS for (or otherwise over-complicate).

I cover some great HTML elements in this article — modals, accordions, live range previews, progress bars and more. You might already know some of these, but I bet there’s something new here for you too.

Inteligencia artificial y accesibilidad

La conferencia "AI and Accessibility: the Good, the Bad, and the Bollocks" se impartió en el marco de FFCONF 2024:

La descripción de esta conferencia es:

Depending on what you read, and who you believe, AI is either the ultimate solution or armageddon in motion, so in this talk, Léonie is going to cut through the clickbait, dodge the doomscrollers, and focus on the facts to bring you the good, the bad, and the bollocks of AI and accessibility.

Treinta años de JAWS for Windows

En Vispero Announces Year-Long Celebration for JAWS’ 30th Anniversary, Beginning at CSUN 2025 se anuncia el 30 aniversario de JAWS for Windows, ya que fue lanzado al mercado en el año 1995. Sin embargo, en Jaws for Windows - a Short History Lesson se cuenta que JAWS para DOS fue lanzado en 1989.

Inteligencia artificial para la escritura de los textos alternativos de las imágenes

El artículo Comparing local large language models for alt-text generation presenta una comparación de modelos de lenguaje de gran tamaño (LLMs) para la generación de texto alternativo (alt text). Este tipo de análisis no es nuevo.

A la hora de comparar los modelos se deben tener en cuenta diferentes aspectos:

• Precisión: Qué tan bien los modelos describen el contenido de las imágenes.
• Velocidad: El tiempo que tardan en generar el texto.
• Eficiencia: El uso de recursos computacionales.
• Facilidad de implementación: Qué tan sencillo es integrar estos modelos en sistemas existentes.
• Coste: El gasto asociado con el uso de cada modelo.

En este artículo no se analiza todo esto, pero la información que presenta es muy interesante.

Cómo comprobar y garantizar la accesibilidad de una página web

 

Un poco de historia sobre WCAG

En The politics of accessibility se cuenta un poco de la historia de WCAG:

The first iteration of WCAG was published in 1999, just eight years after Tim Berners-Lee published the initial draft specification for HTML and just six years after the MOSAIC web browser was first released. Two of WCAG 1.0’s three editors, Wendy Chisholm and Gregg Vanderheiden, were at the Trace R&D Center, at the time affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Before work began on WCAG under the auspices of the W3C, Chisholm and Vanderheiden had already created eight iterations of what they called the Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines. Prior to those guidelines, Vanderheiden had published an article in January 1995 titled “Design of HTML (Mosaic) Pages to Increase their Accessibility to Users with Disabilities Strategies for Today and Tomorrow,” which identifies a series of common accessibility barriers and provides design or code solutions. (Incidentally, some of the problems identified remain things the web struggles with.)

But it’s important to understand that Vanderheiden, Chisholm, and the Trace Center weren’t unique visionaries who stood separate from the world. They were part of a community that, from its earliest days, understood and valued accessibility.

Vanderheiden had attended at the Second International WWW Conference: Mosaic and the Web in beautiful Chicago, Illinois in October 1994 — just a few months before his January 1995 article. So did Paul Fontaine and Mike Paciello, both also speaking on disability and accessibility. At that conference, Tim Berners-Lee identified accessibility as an important focus area as the web continued to grow and develop. Accessibility was very much in the air in the formative stages of the web.

That was a quick-and-dirty history — a too-short narrative that absolutely leaves out a ton of people and details. It’s not the whole story by any measure, and crucially it glosses over the contributions of a large and diverse community that includes a lot of people with disabilities.

Las pautas de accesibilidad antes que las WCAG

Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines (enero 1998) son las pautas de accesibilidad que se convirtieron posteriormente en Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (mayo 1999). Los dos autores del documento inicial, Gregg C. Vanderheiden y Wendy A. Chisholm, fueron luego editores de WCAG 1.0.

La introducción del documento dice:

The 8 series of website accessibility guidelines is the final set of unified guidelines prepared by the Trace Center. The Web Access Initiative (WAI) of the World-Wide-Web Consortium (W3C) has been launched, and the development of HTML guidelines is being transferred to that body. The Trace Center will be continuing to work with and as a part of the WAI. As a result, the Trace Center will no longer be developing or maintaining this Unified Website Accessibility Guideline series. Readers are referred to the W3C site (http://www.w3.org/wai) for the latest version of the guidelines.

Nuevos criterios de accesibilidad para dispositivos móviles en WCAG 2.2

 

Nuevos criterios de accesibilidad para dispositivos móviles en WCAG 2.1

 

Control mediante EMG: una herramienta para mejorar la accesibilidad en personas con discapacidad