Universal Design in Action: Facebook Video Captioning
Facebook found that video captions increase engagement by users. This is a great example of universal design in action!
Case Studies
Baseball, Nonprofit Websites, and Better Password Management
Lots of nonprofits don’t have the best password-management systems. It turns out professional baseballs teams don’t either.
Good & Bad Accessibility in the Pacific Northwest
Today, I want to share two quick things about accessibility (one web, one not) that are both local to MRW Web Design. Seattle Public Schools Accessibility Lawsuit A faithful blog reader let me know about this first story after reading last week’s post on the lawsuit against Harvard and M.I.T. for not captioning videos. Despite minimal news … Continue reading “Good & Bad Accessibility in the Pacific Northwest”
The Last Resort: Harvard & M.I.T. Sued Over Video Captioning [link]
I used to talk about the legal ramifications of having an inaccessible website a lot more. However, WebAIM’s “Hierarchy for Motivating Change” helped me realize there were better arguments in favor of accessibility. That said, sometimes a story is too big to ignore. From the February 12 New York Times: Advocates for the deaf on Thursday filed federal lawsuits … Continue reading “The Last Resort: Harvard & M.I.T. Sued Over Video Captioning [link]”
Open Letter: Gravity Forms 1.9 Placeholder and Label Settings Mean More Inaccessible Forms
One of my very favorite WordPress plugins, Gravity Forms, is making a mistake with the implementation of two new form field settings. But it’s not too late to change it!
KISSing Your Web Forms
Keep It Simple, Stupid! It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek but still great advice. Let’s apply it to web forms and see what happens.
Messing with Expectations and UI. Feedback Needed!
I need some quick feedback. I’m releasing a major update to a plugin and I’ve made a simple tweak to the settings form. Will it help or will it hurt? You tell me.
Behind the Scenes: Style Tiles
Style tiles are a great way to test different design ideas without creating a monster.
My Multiscreen Life [link]
Half a year ago I bought a tablet. Here’s why.
Poll: Are you still using RSS?
Do people still use RSS? That’s a question that comes up among my clients—at least those who know what RSS is—and I’ve realized that I don’t really know. Take a moment to tell me whether you use RSS.
Import Text Formatting in Tables to TablePress via the WordPress Editor
A client project leads to a tutorial to get formatted tables into a useful WordPress plugin. Hopefully this post will help someone else who’s stuck!
Two Amusing (Canadian!) Videos About Web Accessibility [video]
Take 10 minutes to watch these two videos about the WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines (you’ll learn what those are) and how Canadian websites can be inaccessible too. As a bonus, these videos were made with accessibility in mind themselves.
Answering “Who Are You?” on Nonprofit Websites [aside]
A couple recent projects have highlighted the need to focus on impact and programming when explaining to website visitors what exactly you do. Here’s what I’m thinking.
Priority: An Allegory
A first for this blog. A fictional tale of a wayward museum commissioner who has lots to tell us about being selective and the importance of a well-organized website…err…museum.
Schemas, Microformats, and Making Your Website Machine Readable
I’m working on a post about search engine optimization for people who don’t care about “SEO.” I wanted to briefly discuss schema.org but got a little carried away, so this is getting its own post.
How To Help a Sighted Person [link]
What do an obscure tribe from North America and people with full eyesight have in common? Find out!