So a little while back, @laura wrote an excellent introductory book on accessibility and inclusive design called Accessibility for Everyone for A Book Apart.

Then, A Book Apart folded and the authors managed to get their rights back.

And yesterday, after Laura put a huge amount of work adapting the book into a beautiful website she built using Kitten*, we republished the book under Small Technology Foundation Press.

You can read it for free at:
https://accessibilityforeveryone.site/

If you want to support our work that makes such things possible, please consider becoming a patron of Small Technology Foundation. We’re tiny, independent, and not for profit. We reject all types of equity investment (VC, etc.) and won’t be sponsored by or otherwise allow our legitimacy to be used to whitewash Big Tech.

https://small-tech.org/fund-us

* https://kitten.small-web.org

#accessibilityForEveryone #LauraKalbag #accessibility #a11y #inclusivity #usability #ethics #web #design #SmallTech

So a little while back, @laura wrote an excellent introductory book on accessibility and inclusive design called Accessibility for Everyone for A Book Apart.

Then, A Book Apart folded and the authors managed to get their rights back.

And yesterday, after Laura put a huge amount of work adapting the book into a beautiful website she built using Kitten*, we republished the book under Small Technology Foundation Press.

You can read it for free at:
https://accessibilityforeveryone.site/

If you want to support our work that makes such things possible, please consider becoming a patron of Small Technology Foundation. We’re tiny, independent, and not for profit. We reject all types of equity investment (VC, etc.) and won’t be sponsored by or otherwise allow our legitimacy to be used to whitewash Big Tech.

https://small-tech.org/fund-us

* https://kitten.small-web.org

#accessibilityForEveryone #LauraKalbag #accessibility #a11y #inclusivity #usability #ethics #web #design #SmallTech

#PSA: If you, like me, have a heck of a time seeing/finding something in a dark colour, empower yourself with some nail polish!

Nail polish works great on metal and plastic, wears well (and can be touched up) and comes in a zillion colours for either matching or contrast.

#MedicalDevices often seem to be #black by default, and this week I finally got so sick of my #CGM reader getting lost in my bedding and/or anywhere else if I set it down, I made it the equivalent of #SafetyYellow.

(This is colour 010 "Marigold Maven" Ultra HD Snap! by Revlon, in case you are seeking the same.)

Not my best work design-wise but as I still needed to use the CGM reader, time was of the essence!

(Also, the polish had dried out a bit and I dodn't know about #NailPolish #Thinners until yesterday).

A bit of painters tape over the touchscreen, charging port, and fine print on the back and the result is a NON-invisible device!

#hack
#disability
#diabetes
#vision
#LowVision
#HighContrast
#Usability

I would highly recommend any techbro (and any developer) to spend some time on slow, laggy or even cutting out internet. So just they can see how their always-online web apps plainly crash when unable to cope with a short offline time. Absolute tragic #UX, loss of data common!
#webdev #usability #accessibility #a11y #web

#PSA: If you, like me, have a heck of a time seeing/finding something in a dark colour, empower yourself with some nail polish!

Nail polish works great on metal and plastic, wears well (and can be touched up) and comes in a zillion colours for either matching or contrast.

#MedicalDevices often seem to be #black by default, and this week I finally got so sick of my #CGM reader getting lost in my bedding and/or anywhere else if I set it down, I made it the equivalent of #SafetyYellow.

(This is colour 010 "Marigold Maven" Ultra HD Snap! by Revlon, in case you are seeking the same.)

Not my best work design-wise but as I still needed to use the CGM reader, time was of the essence!

(Also, the polish had dried out a bit and I dodn't know about #NailPolish #Thinners until yesterday).

A bit of painters tape over the touchscreen, charging port, and fine print on the back and the result is a NON-invisible device!

#hack
#disability
#diabetes
#vision
#LowVision
#HighContrast
#Usability

I would highly recommend any techbro (and any developer) to spend some time on slow, laggy or even cutting out internet. So just they can see how their always-online web apps plainly crash when unable to cope with a short offline time. Absolute tragic #UX, loss of data common!
#webdev #usability #accessibility #a11y #web

#NoScript 13.5 is out, with many user experience improvements!

The most visible:
- new "cascade permissions" mode
- the onboarding / site classification behavior panel (in the picture)
- many #usability and #security enhancements regarding blocked content and click-to-play

The greatest thanks(giving) to the Open Technology Fund #otf for strenuously supporting NoScript during the past 2 years, especially through the Manifest V3 compatibility ordeal.

https://noscript.net/

#NoScript 13.5 is out, with many user experience improvements!

The most visible:
- new "cascade permissions" mode
- the onboarding / site classification behavior panel (in the picture)
- many #usability and #security enhancements regarding blocked content and click-to-play

The greatest thanks(giving) to the Open Technology Fund #otf for strenuously supporting NoScript during the past 2 years, especially through the Manifest V3 compatibility ordeal.

https://noscript.net/

To the user-interface designers and programmers out there: If the unfortunate event happens and you have to show an error message, please make sure the message is actually helpful for identifying the issue. You might think that hiding technical details is user-friendly, but in fact, the opposite is true. Do not make us guess what is wrong, tell us what you know!

You might be afraid that this confuses users who are less tech-savvy. Not necessarily, if you give them a rough idea first (maybe in a more emphasized font) and then continue with the details you have (maybe in a smaller font). I am quite sure users are able to ignore the parts they do not understand, and if they need support, at least the person giving support has something to work with.

Some simple examples:

❌ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device."
❓ "Okay, but why?"
✅ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device 'foo' (maybe it is turned off?): The device does not respond."

❌ "Cannot open file."
❓ "Which file? And again, why?"
✅ "Cannot open file 'testfile.txt' for reading: Permission denied"

❌ "Something went wrong when trying to load the website."
❓ "Again, what's the problem? Is the network interface down? Is the DNS server down? Is the target server itself down? Give me a hint, please!"
✅ "Cannot load the website. Maybe your computer is not connected to the Internet? Details: No route to host (192.168.10.1) when attempting to connect to the DNS server."

This is nothing new. In fact, it is just an adaptation of the top-down writing approach we also use when writing scientific papers, for example: You begin with a rough overview and give increasingly more details later in the text.
But do not omit the details completely!

#usability #userinterfaces #userinterfacedesign #errormessages #programming #writing #technicalwriting

PLEASE SHARE

Are you an #OpenSource project? Would you like to make your website (or web app?) easier to use?

I teach a university course on #usability testing, and I'm looking for clients to work with in spring semester. I'd love to help an open source project.

Timeframe is early March until early May, and you get a detailed report that tells you what's easy, what's hard, and what to improve. And it's FREE.

Interested? Email me so we can talk about details:
jhall @ freedos . org

PLEASE SHARE

Are you an #OpenSource project? Would you like to make your website (or web app?) easier to use?

I teach a university course on #usability testing, and I'm looking for clients to work with in spring semester. I'd love to help an open source project.

Timeframe is early March until early May, and you get a detailed report that tells you what's easy, what's hard, and what to improve. And it's FREE.

Interested? Email me so we can talk about details:
jhall @ freedos . org