Accessibility Insights

Accessibility Insights es una nueva herramienta de evaluación de la accesibilidad web lanzada por Microsoft.

Está disponible en forma de extensión para Google Chrome.

Y el siguiente vídeo explica su uso:

Las mejores herramientas para verificar el contraste de color

En Best Color Contrast Checkers for Accessibility Testing se analizan las herramientas:

• Contrast Ratio by Lea Verou
• WCAG Color Contrast Analyzer
• WAVE Accessibility Evaluation Tool for Chrome
• Color Contrast for iOS by UserLight

Cómo reducir las animaciones en una página web

En Move Ya! Or maybe, don't, if the user prefers-reduced-motion! se explica una nueva media query que permite detectar cuándo un usuario no desea animaciones en una página web.

Libro gratuito "Web Accessibility for Developers"

Web Accessibility for Developers:

Web Accessibility for Developers is a technical book aimed primarily at programmers. Learn how to develop accessible interactivity on the Web and gain expertise using WAI-ARIA, a W3C specification that enables optimal use of assistive technologies, like screen readers, when navigating the Web.

Desastre de imágenes en Naukas

En el sitio web Naukas, el uso del texto alternativo con las imágenes es un verdadero desastre:

Tenemos los típicos botones (imágenes que son enlaces) de redes sociales:

que están hecho con iconos y sin un texto equivalente (no se puede poner un texto alternativo porque las imágenes no están en el HTML, están en el CSS):

Tenemos los típicos enlaces contiguos, uno con una imagen, otro con texto, que tienen el mismo texto y el mismo destino:

Y tenemos las típicas imágenes en enlaces sin texto alternativo:

Errores de accesibilidad en la web de El Corte Inglés

La web de El Corte Inglés tiene algunos errores de accesibilidad curiosos. Por ejemplo, un enlace que contiene una imagen con un texto alternativo y el mismo texto al lado.

O un enlace al que le han puesto el atributo alt:

El mercado de los servicios de evaluación de la accesibilidad web crecerá los próximos años

Según Accessibility Testing Service Market is slated to grow rapidly in the coming years:

Accessibility Testing is defined as a type of Software Testing performed to ensure that the application being tested is usable by people with disabilities like hearing, color blindness, old age and other disadvantaged groups.

Global Accessibility Testing Service Market documents a detailed study of different aspects of the Global Market. It shows the steady growth in market in spite of the fluctuations and changing market trends. The report is based on certain important parameters.

Some of key competitors or manufacturers included in the study are: , QA InfoTech, QualiTest, Planit, QualityLogic, Siteimprove, Invensis, Knowbility, Applause, QA Consultants, Intopia, Interactive Accessibility, Paciello Group, Happiest Minds, TestingXperts, Zoonou, Octaware, BarrierBreak, AccessibilityOz, Ten10, BugFinders, Magic EdTech, 360Logica, Sopra Steria, Deque Systems, Saffron Tech, Criterion 508

The rising technology in Accessibility Testing Service market is also depicted in this research report. Factors that are boosting the growth of the market, and giving a positive push to thrive in the global market is explained in detail. It includes a meticulous analysis of market trends, market shares and revenue growth patterns and the volume and value of the market. It is also based on a meticulously structured methodology. These methods help to analyze markets on the basis of thorough research and analysis.

Curso "Materiales digitales accesibles (3ed)"

Materiales digitales accesibles (3ed) es un curso perteneciente al Canal Fundación ONCE en UNED Abierta. Financiado por el Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad del Ministerio de Sanidad, Consumo y Bienestar Social del Gobierno de España.

El calendario del curso es:

• Inicio del curso: 1 de abril de 2019
• Fin de la atención tutorial: 5 de mayo de 2019
• Cierre del curso: 8 de septiembre de 2019

El temario del curso es:

1. Materiales digitales
2. Accesibilidad de material multimedia (información sonora y visual)
3. Accesibilidad de textos digitales (textos e imágenes)
4. Mini-vídeos Docentes Modulares
5. Mini-libros Electrónicos Modulares

Y el vídeo de presentación del curso:

Los subtítulos no solo ayudan a las personas con discapacidad

Muy interesante todo lo que se explica en Why Gen Z Loves Closed Captioning:

Closed captioning is a relatively recent development in the history of broadcasting, and it was designed with the hearing impaired in mind. According to a useful history on the National Captioning Institute’s (NCI) website, the technology dates back to the early 1970s, when Julia Child’s The French Chef “made history as the first television program accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.” Real-time captioning arrived later, with stenographers typing at a blazing 250 words-per-minute to keep up with live news and sporting events.
If it wasn’t for the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 and additional rules adopted by the FCC in 2012, it’s unlikely my daughter’s IP-based Netflix streaming content would even have closed captioning options today.
While the NCI doesn’t explicitly acknowledge the growing use of closed captioning by those without hearing impairments, it does note that “closed captioning has grown from an experimental service intended only for people who are deaf to a truly global communications service that touches the lives of millions of people every day in vital ways.”
It’s certainly not just a phenomenon for young people. There are many people my age who admit to using them because they have some middle-aged hearing loss or simply need help understanding what the characters on Luther or Peaky Blinders are saying. They use captions to focus more intently on the content.
The need to read captions for what you can hear might even have a biological base. According to Dr. Sudeepta Varma, a psychiatrist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, some people may have trouble processing the audio from television.

Educación inclusiva en universidades presenciales

Conferencia impartida en el V Foro de Academia Innovadora "Fomentando una cultura de innovación, diálogo y accesibilidad con el apoyo de las TIC" en la Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica el 20 de septiembre de 2017:

Cómo trabaja un programador ciego

En Así es como trabaja un programador ciego, se cuenta:

Tuukka Ojala es un desarrollador de software ciego originario de Finlandia. Cuando trabaja, mantiene su computadora portátil cerrada tiene un teclado externo conectado a ella con la que puede realizar su trabajo de una manera peculiar y extraordinaria.

Las cinco reglas de ARIA

En Using ARIA:

1. First Rule of ARIA: If you can use a native HTML element or attribute with the semantics and behavior you require already built in, instead of re-purposing an element and adding an ARIA role, state or property to make it accessible, then do so.
2. Second Rule of ARIA Use: Do not change native semantics, unless you really have to.
3. Third Rule of ARIA Use: All interactive ARIA controls must be usable with the keyboard.
4. Fourth Rule of ARIA Use: Do not use role="presentation" or aria-hidden="true" on a focusable element.
5. Fifth Rule of ARIA Use: All interactive elements must have an accessible name.

Y en español:

1. Primera regla de ARIA: si puede usar un elemento o atributo HTML nativo con la semántica y el comportamiento que ya necesita, en lugar de reutilizar un elemento y agregar un rol, estado o propiedad de ARIA para hacerlo accesible, entonces hágalo.
2. Segunda regla de ARIA: no cambie la semántica nativa, a menos que realmente tenga que hacerlo.
3. Tercera regla de ARIA: todos los controles interactivos de ARIA deben poder utilizarse con el teclado.
4. Cuarta regla de ARIA: no use role="presentation" o aria-hidden="true" en un elemento enfocable.
5. Quinta regla de ARIA: todos los elementos interactivos deben tener un nombre accesible.

Desastre de contraste en la web de Turkish Airlines

En una página web de la web de Turkish Airlines hay que elegir un país en una lista desplegable. El país seleccionado se puede ver con mucha dificultad, el resto de países, ¿hay más países en la lista?

No confiar en las herramientas automáticas de evaluación de la accesibilidad web

En A warning about automated accessibility "warnings":

There are a lot of people out there who want automated accessibility testing. I see the question asked all the time on Twitter, especially by those that may be new to accessibility. Often they may not know exactly what to focus on to fix their issues, and just want a report, or linting errors, to tell them what to fix and why.

Fortunately for them, there are quite a few tools out there than can be run as part of development build processes, as one-off instances via browser extensions, and there are even services that will run continuous testing against your website or application.

These testing tools are really great for helping people find flagrant accessibility issues. However, just because a warning pops up, or your “accessibility score” doesn’t reach a perfect 100%, you should still verify that these warnings are actually issues to solve for.

[...]

Automated tests are just one tool we can use to help ensure we’re building accessibly compliant websites and applications. However, it’s important to understand the results you’re receiving, and to be able to verify if an issue, or best practice, is truly an issue to act on.

For instance, warnings to check text against background images is common place with many automated checkers. It can be incredibly difficult to automatically determine color contrast in such situations, so a warning will be flagged for a manual check. It is a good thing to be reminded to verify such instances. While it may seem daunting to be met with a large number of issues to “review”, it’s far better than receiving no guidance at all.

Sometimes you may come across gaps in the assertions these tools are based on. Or a best practice may dictate that you don’t double up ARIA roles on their native elements, when that’s absolutely what you need to do to ensure cross-browser and assistive technology feature parity.

So please do use these tools, they can be incredibly helpful. It just behooves us to ensure that we’re not chasing down “100% accessibility scores” when it’s usable and inclusive user experiences we should really be focused on.

Sobre el uso de abbr

Consejos de Short note: The abbreviation appreciation society:

WHY SUX?

• The title attribute content is only practically available to mouse users.
• The title attribute display for mouse users with low vision is problematic, to say the least.
• The title attribute content is available to users of JAWS and NVDA screen reader users if they enable it, by default it’s ignored.
• VoiceOver simply does not announce the title attribute content on <abbr>
• No amount of clever tricks with ARIA, CSS and JavaScript will make it not suck.

A solution
Provide an expansion of the abbreviation/acronym, neuronym even, in plain text on first use, use an <abbr> to mark up the abbreviation, which provides a hint to user agents on how to announce/display the content:

Informes sobre accesibilidad de e-learning

Dos informes que ya tienen algunos años:

Accesibilidad de plataformas e-learning, recursos educativos y libros electrónicos

En este contexto, el Observatorio de la Accesibilidad TIC de Discapnet se ha centrado en este estudio en los recursos educativos online, en las plataformas de e-learning y en los libros educativos electrónicos. Para la selección de la muestra se han tenido en cuenta criterios objetivos, como las principales fuentes públicas de recursos educativos para alumnos y profesores, las plataformas e-learning más utilizadas por las universidades españolas e internacionales, o las principales editoriales de material educativo electrónico en nuestro país. En el siguiente apartado se recoge la muestra de recursos, plataformas y libros analizados y los criterios que han llevado a determinarla.


Accesibilidad de Plataformas Educativas

En este contexto, el Observatorio de la Accesibilidad TIC de Discapnet se ha centrado en este estudio en sitios web de  empresas y organizaciones que ofrecen formación online utilizando alguna de las plataformas educativas más comunes. Para la selección de la muestra se han considerado tanto las plataformas para la gestión de grupos de tamaño limitado (como Moodle y Sakai, que ya fueron analizadas en el observatorio de Discapnet en 2013) y aquellas más novedosas que ofrecen cursos de tipo más abierto y que van dirigidas a grupos de mayor tamaño (los conocidos como MOOCs). En el siguiente apartado se recoge la muestra de sitios web analizados y los criterios que han llevado a determinarla.

El estudio pretende ofrecer una panorámica sobre el estado actual de la accesibilidad de una selección de plataformas educativas, de modo que se cuente con un diagnóstico que permita orientar a los responsables de su creación, gestión y publicación en la mejora de las condiciones de accesibilidad, y a los usuarios en cuanto a las posibilidades que ofrece cada uno.

Explicación de los sistemas de control basados en interruptor

Muy bueno el siguiente vídeo:

La importancia de los encabezados

El artículo The Importance of Heading Levels for Assistive Technology explica lo importante que son los encabezados para la navegación por una página web:

The HTML specification describes six heading elements: h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6. The number in each of these heading elements reflects its priority, with h1 being the most general and h6 being the most specific. 

This is an important thing to know! WebAIM’s 2017 Screen Reader survey tells us that navigating via headings is the most important way people who rely on assistive technology locate information. Because of this, it’s important to craft your website’s headings properly.

Guía de estilo para crear contenido apropiado para las personas con dislexia

La Dyslexia Style Guide 2018: Creating Dyslexia Friendly Content de la British Dyslexia Association:

This Style Guide provides principles that can help ensure that written material
considers the difficulties experienced by some dyslexic people and allows for the use
of text to speech to facilitate ease of reading. Adopting best practice for dyslexic
readers has the advantage of making all written communication easier on the eye for
everyone.

When making changes consider all the ways that you use written communications,
such as emails, presentations, web pages and printed materials. Consider these
principles in combination with other accessibility guidance such as the Web
Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG).

Readable Fonts

• Use sans serif fonts, such as Arial and Comic Sans, as letters can appear less
crowded. Alternatives include Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet,
Calibri, Open Sans.
• Font size should be 12-14 point or equivalent (e.g. 1-1.2em / 16-19 px). Some
dyslexic readers may request a larger font.
• Larger inter-letter / character spacing (sometimes called tracking) improves
readability, ideally around 35% of the average letter width. If letter spacing is
excessive it can reduce readability.
• Inter-word spacing should be at least 3.5 times the inter-letter spacing.
• Larger line spacing improves readability and should be proportional to inter-word
spacing; 1.5 / 150% is preferable.
• Avoid Underlining and italics as this can make the text appear to run together and
cause crowding. Use bold for emphasis.
• Avoid text in uppercase / capital letters and small caps, which can be less familiar
to the reader and harder to read.

Headings and Structure

• Use headings and styles to create consistent structure to help people navigate
through your content.
In Word, you’ll find these tools in the ‘Home’ tab:
• For headings, use a font size that is at least 20% larger than the normal text. If
further emphasis is required, then use bold.
• Use formatting tools for text alignment, justification, indents, lists, line and
paragraph spacing to support assistive technology users.
In Word, you’ll find these tools in the ‘Layout’ tab:
• Add extra space around headings and between paragraphs.
• Ensure hyperlinks look different from headings and normal text.

Colour

• Use single colour backgrounds. Avoid background patterns or pictures and
distracting surrounds.
• Use sufficient contrast levels between background and text.
• Use dark coloured text on a light (not white) background.
• Avoid green and red/pink, as these colours are difficult for those who have colour
vision deficiencies (colour blindness).
• Consider alternatives to white backgrounds for paper, computer and visual aids
such as whiteboards. White can appear too dazzling. Use cream or a soft pastel
colour. Some dyslexic people will have their own colour preference.
• When printing, use matt paper rather than gloss. Paper should be thick enough to
prevent the other side showing through.

Layout

• Left align text, without justification.
• Avoid multiple columns (as used in newspapers).
• Lines should not be too long: 60 to 70 characters.
• Use white space to remove clutter near text and group related content.
• Break up the text with regular section headings in long documents and include a
table of contents.

Writing Style

• Use active rather than passive voice.
• Be concise; avoid using long, dense paragraphs.
• Use short, simple sentences in a direct style.
• Use images to support text. Flow charts are ideal for explaining procedures.
Pictograms and graphics can help to locate and support information in the text.
• Consider using bullet points and numbering rather than continuous prose.
• Give instructions clearly.
• Avoid double negatives.
• Avoid abbreviations where possible; always provide the expanded form when first
used.
• Provide a glossary of abbreviations and jargon.

Inicio del curso gratuito "Discapacidad y envejecimiento activo. Soportes tecnológicos" segunda edición

Este 18 de marzo se inicia la segunda edición del curso Discapacidad y envejecimiento activo. Soportes tecnológicos. en el que participó con el módulo sobre accesibilidad web.

El contenido del curso es:

1. Módulo 1. Accesibilidad e inclusión social
2. Módulo 2. Accesibilidad en la Web y Participación social
3. Módulo 3. Educación para la salud, intervención social y TIC
4. Módulo 4. TIC y vida independiente
5. Módulo 5. TIC y tratamiento de la memoria
6. Módulo 6. Las TIC en los Recursos Sociales
7. Módulo 7. Aplicaciones de la Telemedicina
8. Módulo 8. Experiencias internacionales y TIC