Archive (Page 2) • Access * Ability • Buttondown

How the focus on Digital Employee Experience is leaving out People with Disabilities

Blurry image of man shown from the shoulders down holding a tablet with various types of digital symbols overlaid — mobile, cloud, email, electronic...

How Tech has Changed Disability

Occasionally, when I find myself in one of those “dammit why is my life so hard” holes and am trying to struggle my way out of it, I think about how if I had...

How people with disabilities can be ableist

Greg Abbott is a wheelchair user, only the third wheelchair-using governor in United States history. What happened that caused him to need to use a...

How Open Floor plans Discriminate against People with Disabilities

Typical cube farm A recent article in the NY Times about “secret spaces” made me think about floor space layouts in business settings. I am NOT suggesting...

How long do people with disabilities have to sue over inaccessibility?

Photo by Tanner Vote on Unsplash Warning: This article is NOT intended to be taken as legal advice by any reader. Go find a real lawyer if you need a legal...

How I transformed from thinking my brain was broken to realizing I had a superpower

I am a quintessential “thin-slicer,” a personality trait that Malcolm Gladwell thoroughly explored in his book, Blink. Thin-slicing describes a person’s...

How Colleges have Ruined the College Admission Process for Parents

I woke up early on Veterans’ Day. I had done a lot of exercises (well, for me anyways) on Sunday afternoon and gone to sleep early. My high school senior had...

How business FOMO is the enemy of good accessibility

FOMO is defined as: Pervasive apprehension that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere that one is missing. FOMO is often...

Hiring an Accessibility Tester? Here is an approach that you should consider

A former team member reached out in November, 2018. He was disappointed because he didn’t get an accessibility testing contract that frankly, he was...

High Impact Accessibility on a Budget

Ceramic Pink Piggy bank, pig is wearing glasses and staring at a old fashioned manual calculator It is easy to spend a lot of money on accessibility....

Having a VPAT is not the same thing as being accessible

How I see myself / How others see me (cat looking into mirror, tiger looking back) I try to write thoughtful, sometimes geeky articles about the esoteric and...

HARO: Every publicity person’s low-budget best friend

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash Ever wondered where reporters get their sources from and how to be one? I can’t count how many times I’ve heard on radio...

Handling accessibility demand letters

This must be the “demand letter” season. Maybe because all the lawyers are working from home due to COVID-19 with courthouses being closed? I’ve had multiple...

Groups that don’t care about people with disabilities

You don’t matter Your needs don’t matter You don’t deserve to be treated equally You are in the “we will get to you eventually” group because you have...

Got sued under the ADA for inaccessibility?

Photo by David Veksler on Unsplash Read Part 1 of this article here about recouping costs for accessibility lawsuits when others are at fault. This article...

Got sued over website accessibility?

This article is not legal advice. This is a general opinion article and should not be relied upon for any legal situation. Always consult an attorney who...

Getting a product accessible is not enough

TL;DR It’s not enough to get a product accessible. The entire product experience should be accessible.The processes needed to attain product experience...

Four Corporate Disability Equity Truths

Photo by Michael Carruth on Unsplash People with disabilities do not have access to equal business opportunities. If you don’t believe that, I ask you to...

Female leaders are better at ensuring people with disabilities aren’t excluded

In the article “What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders,” the female leaders of Denmark, Iceland, Germany,...

Federal accessibility laws don’t matter — California’s accessibility laws do

Federal laws are a minimum standard that must be followed by every entity they apply to in every US state/territory. The Supreme Court stated in Geier v....

Even free software needs VPATs …

Part 2 of a multi-part series on accessibility and open-source software. Read Part 1 here. Accessibility Myth: Free software doesn’t require VPATs. VPATS are...

Ethical design and accessibility

Red wooden block labeled “ethics” in the center of a Jenga game, other blocks labeled morality, relationship, behavior, choice, responsibility, trust,...

Enable Accessibility

I’ve been living in a trailer for seven months wearing the same one week’s worth of clothes every day. Everything else I own is packed away in storage while...

Eight steps to a more inclusive event

Photo by Gabriel Benois on Unsplash Part one of a two-part article. Part two focuses on how to make PowerPoint presentations more accessible. A significant...

Do you have a disability if you don’t have an official diagnosis?

First of all, disabilities are almost always thought of in either medical or legal contexts. The CDC’s definition of a disability, which is medical, is two-...

Don’t start the work New Year by sponsoring a weight loss contest

Exercise Almost 1/3 of Americans make New Year's resolutions. A staggering number of the resolutions made by people are related to weight loss (37 %),...

Don’t just design accessible products, build accessible experiences

Let’s break down that statement here real quick. Design accessible products “What the heck is offensive about that, Sheri?” you are probably saying to...

Domino’s accessibility lawsuit update

Photo by Oleg Ivanov on Unsplash Case history Robles, the plaintiff, couldn’t order a pizza from Domino’s through the Internet (this was back in 2016, which...

Do internet-only businesses come under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash Places of public accommodation is a particular phrase defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA identifies...

Do internet-only businesses come under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash Places of public accommodation is a particular phrase defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA identifies...

Documenting Accessibility Decisions

Focus and memory are privileges, perhaps even more so, for people with disabilities, who are: More likely to be at a socioeconomic disadvantage as measured...

Documentation and Accessibility

Photo by AndriyKo Podilnyk on Unsplash Document generation engines are a big part of technical documentation these days, especially in enterprise software....

Disability Microaggressions — AKA “Ableist things people say”

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash What is a microaggression? A microaggression is an indirect, subtle, possibly unintentional discrimination against members...

Disability inclusive workplaces

Yeah, that’s a lot of yellow. But I loved the graphic. Thanks stock.adobe.com ! HBR recently published an article called 5 Strategies for Creating an...

Disability Burnout is Real

Disability burnout is a state of physical or emotional exhaustion caused by, or made worse by a disability. Symptoms include: feelings of exhaustioninability...

Disability and AI Bias

Four cartoon images of business people of different genders and races, each holding a white face mask partially covering their faces. In May 2019, San...

Disability/Accessibility Language Choices

Photo by Soner Eker on Unsplash In the first part of this three-part article, I talked about the four different sociological models of disability. To recap,...

Digital Accessibility Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Creating a metrics oriented hierarchy for tracking accessibility progress OKR hierarchy with seven components: Objectives, Key Results, Target, Framework,...

Digital Accessibility Concerns in Design Affordances

13 different types of kitchen utensils made of various materials A design affordance is a clue about how an object should be used, typically provided by the...

Difficult conversations about disability and birth defects

TRIGGER WARNING: This article includes discussions about pregnancy termination. Any off-topic, rude, or religious-based comments will be deleted. Usually, it...

Designing Toast Messages for Accessibility

Three toast messages, the first is informational and says “great job” the second is success and says “the server configuration changed” with a close icon,...

Department of Justice to companies with inaccessible websites: We’re back!

On November 1, 2021, the Department of Justice published a settlement agreement it entered into with the nationwide pharmacy chain Rite Aid specifically...

Deconstructing Accessibility Statements

Photo by Mari Helin on Unsplash This is MY interpretation of the accessibility statement legal-ese. I am not your lawyer. You need to make up your own mind....

Dark UI themes are new and cool — but are they accessible?

The dark mode is one of those new, hot design features that is generating a lot of “buzz”. Apple and Slack, for example, have been pushing dark-themed pages...

COVID-19 vaccine workplace accommodation requests

Photo by Hakan Nural on Unsplash Disclaimer: This is not legal advice and is my own opinion. It in no way should be considered the opinion of my employer....

Cost per hour for Accessibility Testing

This is part one of a two-part article. The second part focuses on whether you should staff testing resources as employees, or contractors, or use...

Cookie Banners and Accessibility

What is a cookie? Cookies are small text files created by a website that is stored in the user’s computer either temporarily (session cookie) or permanently...

Convincing People to Be Accessible

Product owners and people above them in the executive hierarchy frequently hold the position that current customers and what they want are the most important...

Context is the most critical aspect of alt-text everyone seems to miss

Twenty-two months ago, when I started this blog, I swore I would never write an article about alt-text or headings because I thought those topics had been...

Constructing an accessibility elevator pitch

Accessibility elevator pitches are essential for two reasons: Introducing yourself and explaining what you do.Immediate, pre-programmed comebacks to people...