Archive (Page 4) • Access * Ability • Buttondown

This Week in Accessibility: The latest in the multi-year Harvard/MIT closed captioning saga

Video window displaying beige cartoon female cartoon and Video window displaying beige cartoon female cartoon and automatically-generated caption “amber...

This Week in Accessibility: What we can learn from the “WebAIM Million”

A human hand reaching out being drowned in a sea of pages Summary of an accessibility analysis of the top 1,000,000 home pages This week being the syzygy of...

This Week in Accessibility: White v. Square

Cartoon iphone with “Payment $25 Accept/Decline” and a credit card and payment device connected at the top It’s not an accessibility case. White is a...

To Disclose, or not to Disclose

This article is not legal advice. If you have questions about how disclosing a disability can impact you legally, ask your attorney, who is most definitely...

Top 10 disability and accessibility TED talks and Videos

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash I get pinged a lot by people asking for accessibility resources. Some accessibility resources are easy to find because they...

Toxic Positivity and Disabilities

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash My friend Debbie Levitt wrote an article about COVID-19 spam. I’ve only known Debbie for a few months, but our views on...

Transitioning from being a manager to an individual contributor

Nine months ago, I was presented with a choice. My job responsibilities had grown beyond the ability of one person to manage the role. Even though I thought...

Twitter and Inaccessible “Voice Notes”

Photo by Yucel Moran on Unsplash Once upon a time (in tech, this is maybe 2–3 years ago), Twitter actually cared about accessibility. For a while, they were...

Uber, CVS, and Rite Aid in the news over disability discrimination

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash Rite Aid settled a case last week with the Department of Justice, which required them to make their COVID portal and...

Using plain language is essential for content accessibility

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash When writing for your audience, it’s essential to keep things simple at the lowest common denominator for your audience. If...

Vetting accessibility vendors

It used to be there were just a handful of major accessibility vendors in the game. SSB Bart Group (now Level Access), Deque, and Cryptzone (now Cyxtera) And...

VMware’s First Accessibility Hackathon

The first week in February 2020, marked VMware’s first accessibility week which consisted of an accessibility summit followed immediately by an accessibility...

Want an employee who is a natural problem solver? Hire someone with a Disability

Dark convoluted maze with cartoon person standing outside of the entrance Why are problem-solving skills desirable in business? The ability to troubleshoot...

Want to add value to your startup? Be accessible

Most startups don’t even know what accessibility is. Here is why it could be the most important business strategy you ever invest in Two hands shaking in...

Website copy says more about your company than you think

A LinkedIn connection posted a critique of the following language in a press release. To protect the guilty, I have deleted the company name, exec’s name,...

We don’t all “have the same 24 hours

By itself, the statement “we all have the same 24 hours” is an empty maxim. Commonly followed up with by “What you do with it is up to you,” or “Successful...

What do American employers owe their employees with mental health conditions

Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash This article will start with a general discussion on accommodations and then move on to the specifics of a mental health...

What does an “accessibility flywheel” look like?

A simplified estimated example of an Amazon flywheel A business flywheel is an alternative to the more traditional “funnel” that graphically portrayed...

What executive administrators need to know about making events more accessible to people with disabilities

Photo by STIL on Unsplash When I was growing up, my father always said, “If you want to know who runs the show, ask an executive assistant.” He is rarely...

What great accessibility managers want from their leadership

Accessibility managers are frequently perceived as contentious troublemakers Accessibility, by its very nature, creates friction, and friction in turn can...

What it’s like to be a liberal, female, disabled archery competitor

23 months ago, we had a group of teammates visiting from Austin and the Pacific Northwest. We wanted to do a group bonding event, only there were some...

What MacKenzie Scott is missing in her donations

Love Amazon or hate them, no one disputes that MacKenzie Scott is very well off, owning 4 % of Amazon stock. Ms. Scott has taken the huge step of committing...

What one wheelchair user thinks about being called “wheelchair-bound”

If you’re not disabled and you don’t have the lived experiences of your colleagues with disabilities, there’s a non-zero chance you’re going to make a...

What people should know BEFORE writing articles or creating products about accessibility

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash I read a lot of articles about accessibility. Some of them (and not just the ones I write) are very, very good. Others are...

What people with disabilities hope to see in a Biden Presidency

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash My first presidential countdown clock started on January 20, 2017, the day President Trump took office. My expectations...

What’s in a name (sign)?

Books have always been an enormous part of my life. I’ve always been a voracious reader. Being in a wheelchair in the 70s for four years continuously in...

What’s more expensive than getting sued over inaccessibility?

Photo by exploration # on Unsplash One of the most interesting new findings in the annual Usablenet accessibility lawsuit report is that 21 % of...

What types of media representation do people with disabilities want to see?

Media representation of people with disabilities is at an all-time high. But the numbers don’t tell a complete story. For starters, that “all-time high”...

When does a disability accommodation become a personal benefit?

As I waited upfront for the pre-boarding with an airline notorious for not having assigned seats, a woman said *VERY LOUDLY* “I wonder what I have to do to...

Where is the best organizational location for Accessibility?

Wooden sign post showing three directions: This Way, That Way, and the Other Way Accessibility is the little red hen of the business world. Almost everyone...

Where to go for accessibility help when you are stuck

It happens all the time, even to people as experienced in the field of accessibility as I am. You are brainstorming about how to solve an accessibility...

Who tests the ADA testers?

Testers are individuals who have no intention of ever buying the product or visiting the location the website revolves around. Testers only visit websites or...

Why accessibility bugs are a good thing and how to handle them

It is incredibly common when I do accessibility podcasts, I am asked, “What does accessibility success look like to you?” I, perhaps oddly, count beginning...

Why COVID-19 contact tracing apps *must* be accessible

COVID-19 coronavirus: Tracing app ‘unusable’ for the blind and those with low vision No one in accessibility was surprised by this headline. The contact...

Why doing an instant ADA website compliance review is a terrible idea

Three vendors’ instant ADA testing options, screenshot on December 21, 2021 This article is not legal advice. This is a general opinion article and should...

Why ERG volunteer work is both important and masochistic

It’s July. And if you aren’t in the US or don’t eat, live, breathe, and sleep disability as I do, you might not know that means it’s “ADA month.” I’ve talked...

Why I seldom turn on my video for Zoom calls

a young woman looking at herself in the rear view mirror of a car I am Sheri Byrne-Haber, a wheelchair-using, no-nonsense, CS degree-holding geek who also...

Why US law effectively mandates all software design be responsive

Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash Smashing Magazine defines “responsive design” as an approach where design responds to the user’s behavior and environment...

“Work as usual” after COVID-19 will be different. Get over it.

Screenshot from an email received by Sheri Byrne-Haber at her private email address (typo is theirs) Even though I have the “not searching for work...

You don’t get a “pass” to discriminate against people with disabilities in an emergency

At 2 pm yesterday, I got the expected call from PG&E notifying me of an impending power outage at 8 pm. In their long list of recorded instructions, someone...

You might be #Diversish if . . .

Cartoon with six identical white men with the first one saying to the second “Diversity is Good. Pass it Down” (with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy) ‘Diversish’...

Your first attempt at making anything accessible will be awful

My primary goal in life is to convince people to make things accessible, which is defined as making products and services work for people with disabilities....

You should NOT be able to resell accessible seating tickets.

Tickets for Rent: ADA tickets are $56 even though non-ADA seats next to it are $106 and seats a couple of seats more to the center are $200 In the US, public...

Accessibility and Whistleblower Lawsuits - Bashin v. Conduent settles

Golden three-dimensional human cartoon figure blowing into an oversized whistle attached to a neckloop while standing on a gavel pad with a gavel behind it....

Accessibility and Usability

ice cream cones with fresh fruit Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash I saw a post on LinkedIn this week that said “You can’t have usability without...

Accessibility and Open Source

More and more companies are either consuming or producing open-source software. However, very few of them are thinking about accessibility. That creates a...

Accessibility and Online Survey

Accessible surveys come from combining an accessible survey builder with an accessible survey Surveys are like design systems. Even if you have an accessible...

Accessibility and Online Education Materials

An empty lecture hall Each day, there are at least a dozen new articles in my LinkedIn feed on converting dead-tree, in-person course materials to online...

Accessibility and Disability Blogging — one year anniversary

A donut with a candle In April 2018, I considered writing a book on accessibility. Blogging, I thought, would be an excellent way to meet my writing goals...

Accessibility and Motion

“Moderation in all things is the best policy.”- Roman comic dramatist Plautus (c.250–184 BCE) While Plautus never had to deal with motion in the context of...