2019/Amsterdam/webforeveryone

Web Standards and Accessibility was a session at IndieWebCamp Amsterdam 2019.

Notes archived from: https://etherpad.indieweb.org/webforeveryone

IndieWebCamp Amsterdam 2019
Session: Accessibility
When: 2019-09-28 11:40

Participants

Notes

Accessibility isn't just for folks who are missing a sense.

Accesibility is one of those important things that will affect everyone - it's not just a matter of if, it's when! For instance, if you haven't slept very well, you'll be impacted. If you're carrying your laptop in one hand and get a phone call in the other, you'll be impacted. If you're hungover, you'll be impacted (ref: jvt.me blog post)

Lots of tools available:

W3 validation
Accessibility tools in FireFox/Chrome

An issue is that it should ideally be built into the CMS, or the application using it, and that can then warn the user that they're using inaccessible formats.

Conversation about whether Microformats are built into WordPress, Marty mentioned that the community-driven and theme-driven nature of WordPress means that not all the support appears.

There may be some ability for MF2 to be used for accessibility.

What support do folks have?

Jamie Tanna has HTML-Proofer built into his pipeline which forces alt tags - Template:sonniesedge mentions this too, that it helps with it, but can sometimes be painful spending time crafting the most helpful alt tag (although worth it!), nudging people along with the right idea is "good manners"
Marty McGuire used a transcript for podcasting in the past, so was able to easily share words, but there doesn't seem to be a great solution for autogenerating it
Greg McVerry not all images ,decorative and redundant, for example need an alt text, correct? you should leave blank if you are going to repeat information say a name of an avatar in an h-card if it is the same as the p-name as this violates redundancy rule? yes??
Greg McVerry working with people new to the web teaching folks early not to use headers for styling is important

As Aaron Parecki mentions, being able to have captions on videos means that you don't have to have audio on to watch it

- captioning my videos is huge but I don't script, don't know an easy work flow beyond paying someong Greg McVerry

Anna mentions that her site used to be 100% accessible (via accessibility tooling) but after some tweaks it's now only ~95%.

From Template:sonniesedge - what is accessibility, and what is accessibility for the IndieWeb? A large amount of the IndieWeb are more aware of it

- the IndieWeb WordPress themes, especially those based on SemPress get mad love from accessibility crowd

Anna mentions DevOpsDays London, which had some amazing accessibility and inclusivity work https://twitter.com/JamieTanna/status/1177145808933806081

It's very likely you'll be affected by accessibility issues in your life, so we need to maximise how we can help disability work - setting the examples and making it easier for others to follow is a great idea.

- my children use accessibility features every day as part of workflow, they use screen readers when doing research, always close caption on TV and YouTube, for many it isn't a tool for "others"

Mention about Facebook's `alt` tags which is partly so they have loads of data on it, but also so it helps others know what a photo has. Could use Microsoft cognitive services to perform this for you

Facebook have also used bad accessibility practices to make it harder for folks to block Sponsored posts - https://twitter.com/wolfiechristl/status/1071473931784212480?lang=en

Marty McGuire mentions the accessibility tree that user-agents see

Marty McGuire speaks about wanting to listen to web content, to which Template:sonniesedge mentions FireFox Pocket, and Jamie Tanna mentions Wallabag's android app which has text-to-speech

- Firefox+Pocket for read-it-later
- Lighthouse tool in Chrome
- Aaron Parecki mentions the issue with robotic voices not being the most natural, and making it hard to listen to
  - Greg McVerry why i could never listen to pdfs but love audible
- Anna uses a Firefox add-on "Speakout" to listen back to her blog posts as a way to hear her own blog posts to make sure they read back OK
- @_die_katrin mentions that some publications may generate it, or may be done by someone reading it
- Template:sonniesedge speaks about the Web Synthesis API

Tantek Çelik puts manual alt text onto his site for all his photos. Greg McVerry manually puts alt text, the photo post in Known convert an img title to alt text which is not ideal, so again I describe each photo in the body text as a stop gap

- issued filed about photo posts
- may have to stop using Known if I can not fix as I am legally responsible to make all materials accessible, and can be foudn libel if I do not (teaching laws)

Further conversation about alt tags - and the tension between making alt tags more descriptive, providing a bit more context, or having it as a literal description of the image? "if it is read to you as someone who can see the image, is the alt tag redundant, and won't add anything new?"

Greg McVerry for infographics I do not use the alt text but describe the image in the body text, while this violates APA (American Psychological Association..the group that decides where my commas go) style guide for using images it is better way to ensure everyone gets the same information versus stuffing it into alt text

Conversation around the way that xkcd uses title/alt tags, and whether that should be correct as it shouldn't add any extra info that isn't in the photo

Greg McVerry looking for recommendations for text editors that work best with accessibility. i can't use tools like Mozilla Thimble (RIP December) or Glitch bc they are not accessible

started students who are blind with blank page as opposed to remixing tools

Participants

Notes

See Also