There seems to be an assumption that content order is not relevant for touch screens because you can tap and find what you’re looking for. In other words you’re not forced to browse in a linear way as you are with a keyboard on desktop or a keypad device with no directional controller. This is simply not true, the order in which content is coded is as important for touch devices as it is keypad devices and desktop.
Here’s why.
Last week I presented at CSUN 12 on Mobile Accessibility and Does Accessibility have to be perfect. The wonderful Joe Dolson did an amazing job capturing the panel discussion from Does Accessibility Have to be perfect and below is my mobile presentation.
Continue Reading Mobile accessibility presentation at CSUN 2012
There are a few fundamental checks you can run on mobile web content and native apps to test screen reader support on mobile. The good news is that while there are clearly some differences the key principles of web accessibility on the desktop are true also for the mobile. This applies to the mobile web, web apps and native apps.
Last night I was lucky enough to have a slot speaking at the uber wonderful Accessibility Summit put on by Christopher Schmitt, Ari Stiles and Environments for Humans. Long time Twitter friend and online colleague Deborah Edwards-Onorio (@redcrew) took the time to capture some of what I presented along with a few pictures and Tweets that really succinctly summarised what I said.
So this is me being very lazy and pointing you at Deborah’s write up of integrating accessibility across devices and saying a huge thank you to Deborah!
Anyone looking for a definitive set of mobile accessibility guidelines will be a little disappointed if they’ve ended up here because the bad news is that there aren’t any publicly available ones. I’m involved in writing some and am aware of other organisations doing the same but until these are published all we have are generic resources and a few platform specific resources.Continue Reading Resources for Mobile Accessibility Guidelines
I tweeted yesterday about the Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards (#vsa2011), a competition to get developers, designers and users together to come up with an idea for an application that can help older and disabled users:
The Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards is a new contest to promote the development of IT applications designed to improve the lives of those with disabilities and people that are older, to help them get more actively involved in society.
It’s a great idea for a competition and has already generated a lot of interest over Twitter. There’s also been a few people asking if I know of any developers, designers or people with ideas that I can put in touch with one another.Continue Reading Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards 2011