Categories
administrative socialmedia twitter

Web Axe publishing update

So much has happened since the last Web Axe post over 18 months ago. The turmoil with Twitter lately (thanks to evil Elon) has inspired a resurgence of a more friendly and responsible Internet – self-publishing and decentralized content, so let’s hope this continues.

One thing we’ve learned over the last couple decades is that large corporations and their owners should not be the owners of the news, of social media, of us.

There will be more Web Axe blog posts coming, and more often. And the Twitter content will be cross-posted from Mastodon, a completely free, decentralized, and open-sourced social media platform. Besides this blog (and RSS feed), please feel free to follow Web Axe on Mastodon at @WebAxe@a11y.info.

PS: good tweets

https://twitter.com/AngryGranny1/status/1588655524949921793

Categories
application socialmedia twitter

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.

EasyChirp2 logo beta

Categories
socialmedia twitter w3c

Companies’ Accessibility Twitter Accounts and More

Here are some large companies’ accessibility Twitter accounts, and other important related links. Follow for great information. Most of the descriptions are taken from the Twitter bio.

And of course, follow me on Twitter at @WebAxe and also on my Web Axe Facebook page.

More

Updated November 2018.

Categories
socialmedia twitter

Make a Pledge for Easy Chirp 2

As you may know, Easy Chirp is a web-based Twitter client which makes the social media service accessible to all. This includes users with a disability (such as visual impairments and motor impairments), Twitter newbies, older users, low bandwidth, and non-JavaScript browsers.

Like all 3rd party Twitter apps, Easy Chirp gets its data from the Twitter API. Easy Chirp uses API version 1.0 which is being shut down in one month. It must be re-built with version 1.1.

The author of Easy Chirp (who is also the author of Web Axe) created a Kickstarter campaign to acquire minimal funds to rebuild the app with the help of a couple of other developers. At the time of writing, the goal is a little over half-way. Please consider making a pledge on the Easy Chirp 2 Kickstarter and help maintain “an inclusive Twittersphere”. If you’re unable to pledge, please forward this message to those who may be interested.

If the goal of the campaign is not met, there’s a good chance that Easy Chirp will not be updated and Twitter will not be available to those who need it.

Easy Chirp Kickstarter

Categories
analysis google socialmedia

Google Plus Keyboard Accessibility

Social media in general has major accessibility problems. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all certainly need improvement.

Google’s latest attempt at social media, Google Plus, launched a short time ago. This time, Google says they “considered accessibility of Google+ from day 1“. Although it’s a much better attempt at accessibility than the ill-fated Google Wave, Google Plus still has a lot of room for improvement.

I’ve only come across one Google+ accessibility review, Will Blind Users Be +1ing?, by a visually impaired user. So I decided to do some more testing myself. Once I got started, it quickly became apparent that only keyboard access checks were needed to determine how much more work needs to be done, as there were many, unfortunately.

Below are some of the web accessibility issues I found on Google Plus, all keyboard access issues.

Home/stream page

  • Tab into “Share” flyout but couldn’t get out without mouse. Strange since you can use Escape key to close the Notifications and Options flyouts.
  • In right column under “Suggestions”, can tab to “Add to circles” button but can’t activate it. Also, unable to tab to “Show all” link.
  • Under stream in left column, the circles links do not have visual focus state.

On a profile page

  • Unable to open Circles options.
  • Can open “Send an email” dialog, but upon closing, focus is lost and returned to top of page.
  • The text and image links in left column have no visual focus indicator, (how frustrating!): People in common, In [username] circles, Have [username] in circles.
  • On posts, no visual focus on “limited” link.
  • On posts, options are not keyboard accessible.

Photos page

  • After selecting a page number or prev/next, focus is lost and returned to top of page.
  • Image hover event not available with focus.
  • Can open image view, but upon closing, focus is lost and returned to top of page.
  • After opening image view, no visual focus on almost everything, I’m lost.
  • After opening image view, unable to select arrows to go to prev/next image.

Circles page

I give up. None of the main content on this page is keyboard accessible. No wonder why screen reader users can’t add people to circle; requires mouse-only drag-and-drop. I guess Google missed Opera’s article on accessible drag-and-drop using ARIA.

Global

  • No visual focus on footer links: Terms – Content Policy – Privacy

Summary

Google+ is more accessible than most Google apps, especially for a new one. But that’s not saying much; there are still many issues to resolve. And again, the list of problems on this post are only a subset of issues. It’s sad the such a huge, powerful, rich technology company can’t get the basics of web accessibility, even when they planned it from the start.

PS: When setting up Google voice and video chat, I quickly came across two “click here” links, yuck!