Category Accessibility

Websites aren’t just meant to look good — they are meant to be easy to use for everybody: people who rely on speech, are color-blind or live with dementia. There is no such thing as a normal user, or average user: keeping our content accessible to whatever comes into user’s way is critical for keeping content future-ready.

How A Screen Reader User Accesses The Web: A Smashing Video

by Bruce Lawson

3 min read
No meows just yet

February 18, 2019 — In this Smashing TV webinar, join us with Léonie Watson as she explores the web alongside some unexpected properties of HTML elements that have a huge impact on accessibility and performance.

29 more articles

Amy Dickens wrote

Web Standards: The What, The Why, And The How

January 14, 2019 — Web Standards, and the documentation to support them, provide huge insight into ‘the why’ and ‘the what’ of the world wide web. In this article, we take a look at the history of Web Standards, how to use them in your work and ways you can get involved in making them. Read More…

Chris Ashton wrote

I Used The Web For A Day Using A Screen Reader

December 19, 2018 — A sighted user puts himself in the shoes of a non-sighted user. Chris Ashton experiences first-hand difficulties that visually impaired users face and describes what we can do as web developers to help. Read More…

Eric Bailey wrote

The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing

September 12, 2018 — Automated accessibility tests are a great resource to have, but they can’t automatically make your site accessible. Use them as one step of a larger testing process. Read More…

William Merrill wrote

Designing The Invisible: 3 Things I Learned Designing For Voice

August 22, 2018 — There are folks all over the globe who are unable to easily complete everyday tasks for themselves. Luckily, developers and designers can help by experimenting with voice technology that empowers them to complete tasks that others may take for granted. Read More…

Oliver Williams wrote

The Holy Grail Of Reusable Components: Custom Elements, Shadow DOM, And NPM

July 16, 2018 — This article looks at augmenting HTML with components that have built-in functionality and styles. We’ll also learn how to make these custom elements reusable across projects using NPM. Read More…

Chris Ashton wrote

I Used The Web For A Day With Just A Keyboard

July 4, 2018 — Many of us are taught to make sure our sites can be used via keyboard. Why is that, and what is it like in practice? Chris Ashton did an experiment to find out. Read More…

Steven Lambert wrote

Designing For Accessibility And Inclusion

April 9, 2018 — The more inclusive you are to the needs of your users, the more accessible your design is. Let’s take a closer look at the different lenses of accessibility through which you can refine your designs. Read More…

Harris Schneiderman wrote

Enter The Dragon (Drop): Accessible List Reordering

January 30, 2018 — There are tons of drag-and-drop list reordering modules out there today, very few of them are built with accessibility in mind. Dragon Drop seeks to fill this gap by providing means for all users to perform this somewhat common task. Read More…

Nick Babich wrote

How To Use Underlined Text To Improve User Experience

December 13, 2017 — (This article is supported by Adobe.) Traditionally used for emphasizing key text, underlines have found a place in online experience, too. In this article, we’ll find out when and why underlines should be used in our digital products. Read More…