Notices by James Scholes (jscholes@dragonscave.space)

Are you, or do you know, someone with a #disability or other #accessibility needs who has been prevented from participating in #programming activities in the classroom because of the Scratch block-based language? Even if a workaround or alternative learning path was found, I'm interested in hearing about the experience. #disability

"We care about your privacy", claims #Spotify upon presenting me with their cookie notice for what must be the fifth time this week. It's a shame the buttons have #accessible names of "tertiaryCta", "primaryCta", "primaryCta", "tertiaryCta", and "tertiaryCtaDismiss", respectively. Maybe this time I'll get lucky and press the magic one that makes it go away for more than a few days? #accessibility

@siblingpastry More specifically:

If I just leave my NVDA browse mode cursor or system focus (in browse or focus mode) on the button and read it repeatedly, the name doesn't change.

If I press Enter on the button, click it, or move focus away and then back, the name updates once, but doesn't continue to change automatically.

@siblingpastry Your example does work as expected, but this one (where the button label updates once per second and the labelling element is hidden) does not:

https://codepen.io/jscholes/pen/EaaebzX

Did you know? If you reference a hidden node via `aria-labelledby` and then update that node's `textContent` on an interval via JavaScript, Chrome completely ignores the update and leaves the accessible name of the labelled element unchanged. Woo-hoo!

#accessibility

Achievement unlocked: My document contained so many perceived spelling errors that Microsoft Word crashed stone dead when I invoked the spellchecker.

Separately from the poll: There are clear user experience issues with this approach.

If someone was updating multiple add-ons in one go and all of them used it, the information would end up spread across multiple dialogs and there'd be no shared opt-out preference between them. The information would also only be shared once the add-on had been updated, rather than before to give users a hint about why they might (or might not) want to install a particular version.

At the same time, NVDA offers no built-in support for add-on change logs. If an add-on author doesn't bundle a help file and include the changes in there, it's game over. An add-on you use every day could have many cool new things, and you feasibly might have no idea that they exist.

Who goes into the Add-On Store after installing updates, manually locates the add-ons that were recently updated, presses Alt+C followed by H to open the help file, works out the heading structure used by each different document, and reads the changes if they're even listed?

Realistic answer: nobody.

@KaraLG84 I'm waiting for them to send me a reminder that I can file an issue, as official permission to file an issue so that I can then go and file an issue.

@GreenSkyOverMe Probably. I suppose I'm struggling with it because I already don't usually expect a response within a certain timeframe; that's why I'm using text comms in the first place. There's also a "Notify anyway" button which makes no sense to me; will that violate their notification preferences and force them to be pinged anyway? That seems deeply problematic if so.

I've been using Slack for years and I still don't know what "<person> has paused their notifications" means. I understand the words, but not why I'm being told about someone else's notification preferences or what I'm supposed to do with the information.

@ldubost Separately, if activating the first new "Document" option in a document editor navigates the user to a completely inaccessible UI, that is a wider usability problem. It's completely non-obvious that users should choose something else, and why inaccessible options are available and highlighted by appearing earlier on the page. @cryptpad

@ldubost From a very quick initial look, the rich text option does seem more promising, but quite a lot of the accessibility help is rendered inaccurate by bugs within the components.

For example, the Alt+0 dialog indicates that I can use the arrow keys to navigate editor toolbars and the context menu, but in both cases the arrow keys don't do anything. In the toolbars, the only option is inefficient tabbing, while I can't work out how to navigate the editor context menu at all.

Unfortunately I don't have time to test more today. @cryptpad

@ldubost Under "New document" on the cryptpad.fr home page, I choose "Document". Once the editor loads, my focus lands in an unlabelled multiline editable area.

When I type in this area and try to read what I've written, NVDA (my screen reader) reports absolutely nothing. Essentially, the editor is always determined to be blank.

If I try to use the standard Tab and Shift+Tab keystrokes to move focus around the page, nothing happens. My focus is trapped inside the editor.

If I press Escape to use my screen reader's own cursor (called "browse mode"), I find:
1. An alert, "This pad is not in your CryptDrive.", at the bottom of the page. It has no accessible markup (like dialog) to indicate that it's a notification I can dismiss, and because focus didn't land in it, I had no idea it was here. I dismiss it with the "DON'T STORE" button, at which point keyboard focus is lost.
2. I now find another alert, "We need your help!", which likewise is not accessibly marked up. I dismiss this too, with "NOT NOW", and focus is lost again.
3. Now that these notifications have been dealt with, I manually return to the editor by pressing Tab a lot. NVDA still reports it as blank, and doesn't see any of the text that I type or paste.
4. Returning to the browse mode cursor, I look around the page and fine, among other things: 66 buttons with no accessible label, a menu bar ("File"/"Home"/etc.) with no accessible markup, menus in that bar that I don't seem able to open, unlabelled text fields for setting font attributes with no labels, disabled text inputs with no labels, and so on.
5. Trying to go back to the home page, I find that all keystrokes for moving to my browser's address bar (Alt+D, Control+K and Control+L) are prevented from working by the application. I have no choice but to close the tab instead.

Much of this is irrelevant because if I can't read the document I'm working on, the rest of the interface doesn't matter. And this level of inaccessibility isn't limited to this document type; for example when I create a new sheet instead, I find nothing resembling an interactive grid or table.

@xot @neil

@xot I still have a strong (but sad) reason to use something else: CryptPad is extremely inaccessible.

I'm not talking about a level of inaccessibility where I could go file a few issues and they could fix them. Rather, it's demonstrably unusable with keyboard only, screen readers, and other accessibility tech. 0 out of 10, if you sent me a document I couldn't read it sort of accessibility.

Worth keeping in mind if you're not just using it for yourself, and you want a diverse audience of readers and collaborators.

@neil

The Web #Accessibility Slack community attracts an unfortunate share of asks that go something like:

"I have an interview/have been tasked with giving a presentation/have been promoted to a role and need to become an expert in accessibility by tomorrow, but I know nothing. Can you please send me free resources?"

And like... it's up to every community member whether or not to respond to these, and I'm all for encouragement. But does accessibility really need people who aren't willing to pay for materials, have unrealistic expectations of how much there is to learn, and may have even lied their way into a position they clearly don't want?

I think not, personally.

The year is 2041. Most people cannot afford to take international flights, and so the seventeen levels of economy class pricing have collapsed to a single flat rate. To fill the corporate bullshit void, YouTube will soon be launching their new pricing model allowing you to choose between Basic Essential, Essential Plus, Standard Lite, Standard, Standard Plus, Premium Lite, Premium, Premium Plus, Elite Lite, Elite, Elite Plus, Select Lite, Select, Select Plus, Ultimate Lite, Ultimate, and Ultimate Plus. All of them include ads.

@alexhall I regularly check out of YouTube videos before the 30-second mark. My attention span is fine, many presenters are just boring and bad at pacing. For content that's legitimately well delivered, I'll happily pay attention for hours. @KaraLG84

@Fragglemuppet I 100 percent agree with this; people posting YouTube links in particular are some of the worst offenders.

I will say though that third-party software (particularly targeted at screen reader users) doesn't help here, by truncating URLs and not making the visible previews available. On the Mastodon web UI, people can see a preview card next to most plain URLs so they know what they are without clicking, and people assume everybody will get that info when posting such links. @FreakyFwoof

Decided to sign up for #Codeberg, the #GitHub alternative that the Fediverse at large is insisting is worth a try and, in some cases, claiming will improve project contributions by avoiding some of the GH antipatterns. I expected to find some #accessibility issues; this is the modern web, after all.

I did not expect a fully inaccessible visual CAPTCHA with no workarounds. I'm unable to solve it, so I cannot create an account.

In short: If you want people who are #blind or #lowVision to contribute to your projects (you do, right?), Codeberg is currently not an #accessible platform.