Author: Dennis

Vimeo Updates Video Player Including Accessibility

Post author By Dennis
Post date January 9, 2014
1 Comment on Vimeo Updates Video Player Including Accessibility

Vimeo, a YouTube competitor, has recently updated its web-based video player. Vimeo now defaults to an HTML5-based player rather than Flash. It provides much faster playback/load times and improved tools to share a video.

Vimeo logo

Although the accessibility implementation may not be perfect, it’s a very significant improvement. The Vimeo player now supports keyboard and screen reader users and supports captions and subtitles! Here’s a live example of Vimeo captions by Amara (@AmaraSubs).

Thanks to Vimeo for these changes. We hope to hear about more improvements.

2013 Year in Review

It was a steady (but relatively slower) year for Web Axe. Besides some blogging, I managed 2 podcasts, Twittered a lot, and maintained the Facebook page. All-in-all 2013 was a great year, with more than enough things to review; here are some:

2013 was the year of the successful Easy Chirp 2 Kickstarter campaign and the (soft) relaunch of Easy Chip 2 beta website (if you didn’t know, I also am the creator/developer of Easy Chirp).
For the first time in person, it was a pleasure to meet Greg Kraus and Kathy Wahlbin at Accessing Higher Ground and Chris Coyier at the CSS Developer Conference.
The rise of the accessibility of WordPress.
Representing my day job, I spoke at several events including the Boston Accessibility Conference and CSUN13 (and looking forward to CSUN14!) And for the first time, I spoke at the online Accessibility Summit and the CSS Developer Conference.
Discovered great folks such as @LauraKalbag; check out her terrific blog Why Bother with Accessibility? And @ScottKellum, read his blog Accessibility isn’t a buzzword, it’s personal.
Sticking to basics was a theme for me this year including blog posts Keep the Underline and Links: Don’t “Click Here”. In the social media, I was shocked and disappointed in having to argue for progressive enhancement.
Lots of accessibility jobs created/available especially with large companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Comcast, and now Yahoo. I do blog and tweet these so if you or anyone you know is looking, give me a follow.
A few extra-special links from 2013:
- Hitting the accessibility high notes with ARIA (by @Ted_Drake)
- Accessibility evaluation for web writers (by @Writing4Web)
- HTML5 accessibility (presentation video, @SteveFaulkner)
- Designing with Empathy (slideshare by @AaronGustafson)
- How Designers Destroyed the World (presentation video)

Do you have anything special to share from this past year?

links usability writing

Links: Don’t “Click Here”

So it’s the end of 2013, and sadly, the phrase “click here” continues to be used in text links all around the web. This is poor usability, accessibility, and sure makes the author look silly!

Reasoning

“Click” places focus on mouse mechanics (and many people don’t use a mouse).
“Click here” hides the target of the link; it’s not a good call-to-action.
Poor for visually scanning the page.
Users must make the extra effort to read before or after “Click here” to determine to where the link goes. (Don’t make me think!)
“Click here” has no context for when a list of links is provided to the user by the user agent.

Examples

To correct the problem, don’t use phrases like “click here” but use meaningful phrases which make sense out of context.

Before: I like the beaches here, here, and here.
After: I like the beaches in Maui, Sarasota, and Saugatuck.

Before: Click here to see if your bill is ready yet.
After: To see if your bill is ready, check the foo app.

Do you have any other examples?

Supporting articles

Why Your Links Should Never Say “Click Here” (Smashing Magazine)
I Don’t Want to Read More or Click Here (Karen Mardahl)
Don’t say ‘click here’ on link text (goodusability.co.uk)
Links and Hypertext (WebAIM)
Click Here and Other Link Text (Jim Thatcher)

Notes

In addition to “click here”, the same can be said for “read more” and other similar link phrases.
Except for tool tips available to mouse users, the title attribute adds no value (touch devices, keyboard users, most screen reader users).

conference expert podcast

Podcast #98: AHG13

The 16th Annual Accessing Higher Ground Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference (hash tag #AHG13) was held recently in Westminster, Colorado at a very nice venue, the Westin Westminster. Representing my day-job employer, I was able to attend and present one session, Usability and Accessibility CSS Gotchas. I was happy to learn that it was being recorded and live broadcast over one the conference’s two virtual tracks. While there, I had the opportunity to interview a few great folks in the business; namely, Greg Kraus, Jayme Johnson, and Kathy Wahlbin. Have a listen!

Download Web Axe Episode 98 (AHG13)

[transcript of podcast 98]

Greg Kraus (@gdkraus), the University IT Accessibility Coordinator at North Carolina State University. He presented The Gamification of Accessibility, which included details about a great online tool he implemented at NCSU.

Jayme Johnson (@hippyjo), Instructor at HTCTU The High Tech Center Training Unit, provides training and support to the faculty and staff of all California Community Colleges. Jayme was on the panel at the plenary lunch during the second day of the conference.

Kathy Wahlbin (@wahlbin), CEO/Founder of Interactive Accessibility and invited expert in the W3C. She presented Accessible Responsive Web Design.

I met Greg and Kathy in person for the first time which was great. I also met keynote speaker David Sloan (@sloandr) in person for the first time as well. Wonderful people.

application socialmedia twitter

Easy Chirp 2 soft beta launched!

Post author By Dennis
Post date October 29, 2013
No Comments on Easy Chirp 2 soft beta launched!

Web Axe author Dennis Lembree has announced the soft release of Easy Chirp 2 beta! Easy Chirp, originally named Accessible Twitter, is a web-based Twitter application which is developed to be easy to use, robust (even works without JavaScript), and of course accessible. The service was down for a few months during a complete re-build mostly due to the closure of Twitter’s original API.

The soft launch is on the dot org domain; the service will be available on the dot com domain during the official release. Currently on the dot com domain, you can sign up for an announcement when the official launch occurs.

For more information, check out this blog about the Easy Chirp 2 beta by Laura Legendary (@Accessible_Info) on her Accessible Insights blog.

You can follow Easy Chirp on Twitter at @EasyChirp.