Tag: Accessibility
More useful extensions for developing with Firefox
A while ago I wrote about some of the extensions I use with Firefox which make the job of web development easier. I’ve since added some new ones to Firefox that I use on a fairly regular basis, so thought I should update the list.
What it’s like to run a web design gallery
Having compiled the list, done the numbers and dealt with the facts, I thought for the follow-up article to the The Ultimate Web Design Gallery Resource that I’d get some opinions from not only some of the people who run the web design galleries in the list about what it’s like to run one of these sites, but also some search engine optimisation (SEO) professionals about the perceived value of having your site included on one (or many).
When to use display: none
If you’re interested in website accessibility best practices, you might have come across warnings against using display: none to hide content that you don’t want to appear on screen. The argument is that content hidden with display: none can’t be accessed by people using screen readers, and the recommended solution is to position the content offscreen instead using a large negative position (let’s call this the offset method). But this shouldn’t be a hard and fast rule for all situations. There are some situations for which using display: none will be acceptable.
Tools for checking website accessibility
Following on from my last post in which I mentioned screenreaders (or alternatives) that people might like to try for checking their own sites’ accessibilty, and an earlier post in which I listed the extensions I use for web development with Firefox, I thought I’d also list the different tools I use for testing website accessibility.
The web from a screenreader user’s perspective
Victor Tsaran, an engineer and Program Manager for Accessibility at Yahoo!, has put together a 27-minute video introducing screen readers and how they interact with web pages.
Dropdown low down
Dropdowns (horizontal) or flyout (vertical) menus abound on websites and come in many different flavours. They are also put together in a number of different ways, some done with javascript, some with ‘pure’ CSS and some a mixture of both.
Developing your site using Firefox
As mentioned previously, I have a personal favourite browser when it comes to web development and that is Firefox. This is not only because of its good standards support (although it doesn’t yet pass the Acid 2 Test) and not because it has tabbed browsing and not because it’s any other browser other than Internet Explorer.
Content bookends
Sometimes you want to have a list of text items or images appear on the same line but with some items aligned to the left and some aligned to the right. An example of this would be a footer where you want to split the links down the middle. Or maybe a blog post where you want to put the date on the left and the number of comments on the right. More on Content bookends
Onfocus, background-changing, sliding door tabs
There are already several excellent articles discussing the sliding door tabs technique for creating navigation elements, so why do we need another one?
Zoom layouts
I came across an article today on A List Apart written by Joe Clark: Big, Stark & Chunky (it is 18 months old - I know, I should read ALA more often) which was aimed at promoting the use of ‘zoom layouts’, which are those designed for people with low or impaired vision.
