|
In my experience we web devs don't actually use or at least watch a video of a screen reader. This is bad. Very bad. Because we talk about accessibility, but it's amazing how many people still don't use aria tags, leverage semantic elements, etc.
Every web dev should watch this video. It's only 4 mins long.
Screen Reader Demo for Digital Accessibility
Not trying to sound preachy (but I am  ). The man is spot on. The world revolves around the Internet now. We can't forget about our blind brothers and sisters.
Side note, one of the cool features (as it pertains to the skip to content thread below) is the screen reader shown already has the ability to jump to a header. Also notice he skipped over the skip to main content link.
But even outside of that, peeps need to see a screen reader in action at least once. In particular how it allows him to scroll with a focus box over content.
Jeremy Falcon
modified yesterday.
|
|
|
|
|
That's a really interesting video and provides great perspective on the issue.
I know that Bootstrap is really good about providing the aria tags as part of their controls, etc. and using Bootstrap helped me to gain some understanding of the importance.
This video was really informative and helpful and made me re-think about how important it is.
Thanks for sharing. 
|
|
|
|
|
raddevus wrote: This video was really informative and helpful and made me re-think about how important it is.
What I find funny is they can already skip to the main content by virtue of headers.  And home dude just strait up ignored that link.
One of the peeves I had watching that video is whoever wrote that web page used spacer divs, images, or something without using an aria-hidden tag. Granted, it's a university and not a professional site, but still. You'll see some of those tabs tabbed over blank space for that reason. Spacers are so 20 years ago, but if you're gonna use one because you refuse to learn Flexbox, at least use an aria tag to tell the screen reader what's up.
raddevus wrote: Thanks for sharing.
Any time buddy.
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
To be clear, I'm totally agreeing with you about the skip to main content link you talked about being implemented like garbage. It seems like something that would otherwise be a good idea was borked... and to top if off not even needed.
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
A couple of hints to developers:
* Get hold of a pair of sunglasses (unless you want to do a cleaning job on your own glasses afterwards  ), and smear them with vaseline or something similar. Carrying those, go through an entire procedure of booting up your PC, reading and responding to emails, running your application with all its features, and shutting the PC down.
* For handling tunnel vision: Make a large cardboard with a small hole, at most 1/8 of the screen width. Hide the screen behind the cardboard, but allow the user to move the boar up and down and to both sides to cover the entire screen, and let users run a boot up, running your application and shutting down.
* For color blindness: Reduce the color saturation to zero, creating a greyscale image (most display card drives allow this), and try to use applications - maybe your own! - using colors to convey essential information. (You may of course use web sites converting the colors according to a specific defect, but those are usually rather slow. Converting to gray scale is certainly not as exact, but it will give a rough indication.)
* Disconnect the mouse (and other navigation tools such as touchpads or joysticks), and go through the process from boot up, starting your application and using all of its features, and closing down, using the keyboard only.
* One nice way of demonstrating how suitable your application is to a blind (or near-blind): Turn the screen to the audience so that you cannot see it, but the audience can. Then demonstrate how you handle boot up, activation of different applications including you own, and shutdown.
* Find yourself a pair of mittens, as thick as possible, and try to handle your keyboard with those.
* Assuming that it is winter, at least 15C below freezing: Go out for at least half an hour without gloves or mittens, and when you come back, go directly to your keyboard and start operating your application.
There is one test that beats them all:
Make your test team include people with different kinds of disabilities: Various sigh impairment (tunnel vision, color blindness, retina defects), various motoric defects, and so on.
A lot of developers who claim that they have adapted their software to various disabilites would (or at least should) feel ashamed when observing how people with those disabilites cope with their software!
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amarnath S wrote: Not sure whether this was commercialized.
That's cool. Hopefully, someone will.
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
Very important. I'll be showing this to my daughter (who does some web development). My work is strictly at the back end, so it's less relevant to me.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
I hate everything about web ui, pretty much.
That said, working on accessibility facelift WCAG stuff was one of the more interesting things I've ever had to do with it.
It also makes me just ever so slightly less enraged about the whole "let's cram everything into a browser because why not, it'll be awesome, guys, come on!?"
Because it does bring a sort of standard even with the DOM itself that lends itself to accessibility stuff like screen readers and input devices. That's pretty important, not just with the internet, but with computing/technology.
|
|
|
|
|
Github has a nifty feature where you can just Open In Visual Studio and it will open VS and clone your repo for you.
I like this magic, but thing is it used to say Open In Visual Studio Code and well over half my projects are in VS Code.
Does anyone know how to get it back? Preferably I'd like both, but if nothing else, I just want it to work with VS Code.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
|
|
|
|
|
Have you tried on the main repository page pressing the period key? "." It will open up a VSCode browser instance. Once that comes up if you go into the run/debug icon there is a button to continue which will ask if you want to clone the repo and open it in desktop VSCode.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks, I'll give that a shot!
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
|
|
|
|
|
I asked Copilot about the "Skip to content" feature.
My Question
Raddevus asked: Why has the accessibility feature "skip to main content" become prevalent in my browser in the recent weeks, even though I'd never seen it before in past years?
Copilot Answer
Copilot answered: The “Skip to Main Content” feature has gained prominence recently due to increased awareness and emphasis on web accessibility. When keyboard-only users interact with a webpage, they rely on the tab key to navigate links. If a page has many links at the top (such as in headers or menus), users must tab through them to reach the main content. The “Skip to Main Content” link allows users to bypass these initial sections and jump directly to the main content, enhancing accessibility12. If you encounter this feature more frequently now, it’s likely because website developers are actively implementing it to improve accessibility for all users. 😊
Ok, whatevs! I know when I'm being gas-lighted (gas-lit?)!!
The Q-To-That-A (Question To That Answer)
Then why is no one else seeing this feature?
I must be the only one reading web sites, right?
Figured Out How To Recreate It Instantly
1) Go to github.com (or any site that uses the feature):
2) hit your tab key, one time -- you'll see it.
But why does mine recently show it if I don't tab?
Cease & Desist!
No worries, you won't hear about me talking about Skip To Main Content any more.
FYI - I posted a question to AskUbuntu[^] (Stack Exchange site).
modified yesterday.
|
|
|
|
|
raddevus wrote: Ok, whatevs! I know when I'm being gas-lighted (gas-lit?)!!
This is my beef with "experts"... they're not really experts. It's more ego than progress. I'm sure Copilot is just regurgitating what it read online, which ironically is just like most people.
Given the fact that tabbing is the only place this makes sense. You'd think a smart dev would only make that appear after the first non-form tab key is pressed and the current tab index doesn't exist in the main content. That way, it won't interfere with anyone except those who would actually use it.
A little bit of knowledge is "dangerous" and this seems to be a another case of not knowing enough but still wanting to feel smart and throwing crap out there anyway.
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
Exactly! Thanks for your post. I really appreciate it.
Often people just take the surface answer and run with it.
But that surface answer isn't even really right, they just get lucky.
In this case eveyrone is just saying "Oh, it's a prevalent thing now." Ok, in the last 2 weeks?
I actually searched for docs showing how to do this and they are 2-3 years old. The feature has been out there for a while.
There's a famous case of a surgeon (did a TED talk).
He had a patient and told her, "Oh, you need this surgery."
He was excited to cut into the patient and do this cool thing.
The patient paused and looked at him with big eyes, "Are you sure that is absolutely necessary?"
In that moment, for some reason, he woke up and said, "No, not really. We could just do this."
They applied the optional treatment with great success with no need to open up the patient!
Let's get to the real answer, not just the surface one.
Oh, but that does take longer than it takes to read a Meme-pic!
Oh, sorry, Modern-Social-Media-Consumer, does that require thinking on your part? 
Update: Found the link about doctor[^].
|
|
|
|
|
raddevus wrote: Exactly! Thanks for your post. I really appreciate it.
Any time man.
raddevus wrote: Often people just take the surface answer and run with it.
I've learned the hard way the vast, vast majority of people can't see past the surface. Usually, their entire existence is nothing but external stimuli telling them how to think. Then there are those who think they don't do that, but still do. 
raddevus wrote: In this case eveyrone is just saying "Oh, it's a prevalent thing now." Ok, in the last 2 weeks?
Seems like a case of change for change's sake. Not out of improvement, but out of boredom. Can't get girlfriend. Won't go outside. Hmmm.... I know... let's add a friggin div MFer!
raddevus wrote: They applied the optional treatment with great success with no need to open up the patient!
Good for her. IMO that surgeon is unethical, and I doubt he's the only one like that. I bet if it was his body he'd think twice.
raddevus wrote: Oh, sorry, Modern-Social-Media-Consumer, does that require thinking on your part?
Most people never think. They're just streams of consciousness at best (being nice here). Then there are those who think they think, pretend they think, etc. Both of these crowds will violently defend not thinking. Not kidding. Only a very small percentage of people actually think.. very, very small.
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
|
Delayed reply.
Windows version:
Working on updates 3%
Don't turn off your PC. This will take awhile.
Your PC may restart several times.
>64
It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
|
|
|
|
|
What do you think?
And, even though I am an astrophysicist by profession, I am not an expert on the Solar System, so don't ask me...
However, I speculate that it actually was an alien starship. I think aliens are out there. And I think they used the Sun as a "gravity assist" vs. the center of the Galaxy, and that there were life forms on ‘Oumuamua. I agree with Harvard professor, Avi Loeb[^] when he speculated that ‘Oumuamua is, indeed, an alien starship.
I mean, what else could it be? I don't believe that it is just a rock that farted Hydrogen gas[^].
And, yes, there is some debate as to whether we should capitalize the world Hydrogen. I am of the religious persuasion that we should capitalize the names of chemical elements 
I doubt we will know the 'absolute truth' for sure. Not until we can be like in Rondezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke[^] and actually launch a spacecraft quickly (i.e., on-the-fly) from Earth and rendezvous with it.
I wonder, if there really were aliens aboard ‘Oumuamua, they were sapient, intelligent, and conscious, and if, say, we were able to quickly and on-the-fly try to rendezvous with it, would they just see our spacecraft approaching them and either (a) accelerate to warp / hyperspace to escape us, (b) let us chase them until we exhausted our fuel, (c) fire on us with their weapons, or (d) open hailing frequencies? In the case of (d), would we be able to understand each other? Or would they have to send Interlac[^] or Linguacode[^]?
I think any civilization that can construct something like ‘Oumuamua would shoot first and ask questions later if they saw a strange ship approaching. Or they would jump to warp to try and escape.
Anyone know if ‘Oumuamua has been tracked, e.g., back to where it came from, or if we can look at it with Hubble/James Web to try and catch if the aliens, say, enter hyperspace upon leaving the Sol System?
Or perhaps is it a derelict, as in, it used to be a powered starship but now it is a dead husk, tumbling through space because it is a victim of some faraway interstellar battle? Also a likely explanation, in my opinion. Pure speculation on my part, though.
I love to just sit and make up fantasies about this kind of stuff. I wish we could know for certain whether aliens are out there, and I wish we could have the technology of casual interstellar travel[^] so we could go exploring.
Regards,
Brian Hart
modified 14hrs ago.
|
|
|
|
|
Why go to outer space for aliens?
As an Indian citizen entering the US, the immigration form at airport categorises me as an alien.
|
|
|
|
|
Amarnath S wrote: immigration form at airport categorises me as an alien.
You should arrive without your passport. You'll then be upgraded to undocumented.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Pfeffer wrote: You'll then be upgraded to undocumented.
That's only if he promises to vote a certain way. Otherwise, he'll be deported.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
|
|
|
|
|
My perspective was solidified when I learned about the Drake equation.
Given the sheer vastness of space, I'm inclined to believe it's inconceivable we're alone in the universe.
But at the same time, because of its vastness, I find it highly unlikely any civilization could ever construct some apparatus that could survive the harsh conditions of interstellar travel. And then could be found by intelligent life. And then have it recognized for what it is.
|
|
|
|
|
We already know that none of the terms of the Drake Equation can be zero because we exist.
|
|
|
|
|
obermd wrote: none of the terms of the Drake Equation can be zero because we exist.
Right, that's why I don't need any convincing that other civilizations exist.
What I was bringing up was contact probabilities. So the Drake equation still brings value to the discussion IMO.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
