Accessibility
By Mike Gifford
on 06/06/2020
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Richard Pietro as part of his Stories from the Open Gov podcast. Richard has gotten some amazing speakers on his show including Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Ashley Casovan, Nathaniel Heller, Melanie Robert, Rob Davidson, Tony Clement, Michael Geist, Lindsey Marchessault, Ryan Androsoff, Tracey Lauriault, Keith Loo, and Jesse Hirsh. You should subscribe to the podcast and listen to it on SoundCloud. We talk about a range of things here from accessibility to open government and open source, I hope you find it interesting.
I was encouraged by Ioanna Talasli ...
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Richard Pietro as part of his Stories from the Open Gov podcast. Richard has gotten some amazing speakers on his show including Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Ashley Casovan, Nathaniel Heller, Melanie Robert, Rob Davidson, Tony Clement, Michael Geist, Lindsey Marchessault, Ryan Androsoff, Tracey Lauriault, Keith Loo, and Jesse Hirsh. You should subscribe to the podcast and listen to it on SoundCloud. We talk about a range of things here from accessibility to open government and open source, I hope you find it interesting.
I was encouraged by Ioanna Talasli ...
By Mike Gifford
on 12/11/2019
According to Statistics Canada an estimated one in five Canadians over 15 years old has a disability. This slices through all sectors of our society and is a significant part of every community in our country.
Often people with disabilities face problems with either the built environment (atoms) or digital tools (bits). Some struggle with both. Accessibility of digital assets (like websites, intranet sites, documents and videos) is complicated.
People who are blind or or low vision come to mind when people think about digital accessibility, but it affects a much broader spectrum than...
According to Statistics Canada an estimated one in five Canadians over 15 years old has a disability. This slices through all sectors of our society and is a significant part of every community in our country.
Often people with disabilities face problems with either the built environment (atoms) or digital tools (bits). Some struggle with both. Accessibility of digital assets (like websites, intranet sites, documents and videos) is complicated.
People who are blind or or low vision come to mind when people think about digital accessibility, but it affects a much broader spectrum than...
on 18/03/2019
1. About
Celebrating 100 years in 2018, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Foundation is a non-profit organization driven to change what it is to be blind today. CNIB delivers innovative programs and powerful advocacy that empower people impacted by blindness to live their dreams and tear down barriers to inclusion. CNIB’s work as a blind foundation is powered by a network of volunteers, donors and partners from coast to coast to coast. The CNIB Foundation, Vision Loss Rehabilitation Canada and CNIB Deafblind Community Services make up the CNIB Group.
2. Facts
CNIB...
1. About
Celebrating 100 years in 2018, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Foundation is a non-profit organization driven to change what it is to be blind today. CNIB delivers innovative programs and powerful advocacy that empower people impacted by blindness to live their dreams and tear down barriers to inclusion. CNIB’s work as a blind foundation is powered by a network of volunteers, donors and partners from coast to coast to coast. The CNIB Foundation, Vision Loss Rehabilitation Canada and CNIB Deafblind Community Services make up the CNIB Group.
2. Facts
CNIB...
By Craig Clark
on 18/01/2019
I do a lot of drawing on my computer and I enjoy it. It is also a part of my job. Like a lot of people in 2019, my work is mobile. My tools go where I go. As great as that is, there is a huge problem. On my laptop, you have to press on the trackpad with a fair amount of force to do something like drawing a curve in Adobe Illustrator. It is really aggravating. Did I find anything helpful in the trackpad settings? Nope! The solution, it turns out, is in accessibility settings. Enable dragging without drag lock and I’m off to the races!
I’m certainly not unique in taking advantage of...
I do a lot of drawing on my computer and I enjoy it. It is also a part of my job. Like a lot of people in 2019, my work is mobile. My tools go where I go. As great as that is, there is a huge problem. On my laptop, you have to press on the trackpad with a fair amount of force to do something like drawing a curve in Adobe Illustrator. It is really aggravating. Did I find anything helpful in the trackpad settings? Nope! The solution, it turns out, is in accessibility settings. Enable dragging without drag lock and I’m off to the races!
I’m certainly not unique in taking advantage of...
By Craig Clark
on 07/01/2019
This morning I woke up, grabbed a coffee, checked the weather on my phone, took a look at today’s news, paid a bill, read my email, checked social media then got down to work. For work, I checked online correspondence, reviewed a video, set up some remote training, did some research and fixed a bit of code on a client’s site. We are having company on the weekend, so I was coordinating that via text messages as well. All that before 7:30 AM.
This is routine stuff for millions of people around the world. There’s nothing interesting about it.
For far too many people though, completing these...
This morning I woke up, grabbed a coffee, checked the weather on my phone, took a look at today’s news, paid a bill, read my email, checked social media then got down to work. For work, I checked online correspondence, reviewed a video, set up some remote training, did some research and fixed a bit of code on a client’s site. We are having company on the weekend, so I was coordinating that via text messages as well. All that before 7:30 AM.
This is routine stuff for millions of people around the world. There’s nothing interesting about it.
For far too many people though, completing these...
By Mike Gifford
on 05/11/2018
I had the pleasure of being on AXSChat talking about web accessibility and Drupal in October. It was actually a two stage process as Neil Milliken and Antonio Santo had a really fun video conversation on the Friday before. Unfortunately, Debra Ruh was not able to join us for the video discussion. That was captured and captioned and uploaded on the weekend. Then on Tuesday, October 23rd, we had an hour long Twitter discussion flooding the Twitterverse with questions about accessibility using the hashtag #axschat. You can watch the video here:
But thought that it might be interesting to...
But thought that it might be interesting to...
By Mike Gifford
on 04/11/2018
Derek Alton wrote a tweet in the middle of October that caught my eye and got me to come up with some suggestions. "Moment of frustration: I love bringing people who I think are inspiring together to do fun shit that they could not do on their own. Right now I feel like I have been bringing people together to talk when what I really want to do is bring people together to act, to do!"
I think of myself as a rather pragmatic guy so I suggested 10 tangible things that the GC can do. This is a cleaned up version of what I tossed up on Twitter.
Seems super simple & easy, but sponsor Open...
I think of myself as a rather pragmatic guy so I suggested 10 tangible things that the GC can do. This is a cleaned up version of what I tossed up on Twitter.
Seems super simple & easy, but sponsor Open...
By Mike Gifford
on 16/10/2018
The Government of Canada (GC) hosted Open First Day on Friday, September 28. It was a really interesting opportunity for hundreds of people in public/private sector to get together and share their experiences.
I’d like to start by congratulating them on the title of the event. It wasn’t Consider Open Source Day or Learn about Open Source and Government Day. It Was Open First Day. Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source and Open Government.
The site for this conference was also forward thinking as it was all built on GitHub. More and more government microsites are hosted on GitHub...
I’d like to start by congratulating them on the title of the event. It wasn’t Consider Open Source Day or Learn about Open Source and Government Day. It Was Open First Day. Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source and Open Government.
The site for this conference was also forward thinking as it was all built on GitHub. More and more government microsites are hosted on GitHub...
By Mike Gifford
on 01/06/2018
After writing this article I learned about IBM’s Content Clarifier from Hassell Inclusion. Something like this could be built right into the workflow of your content creation process.
Accessibility (a11y) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is complex, but it doesn't have to be hard. If you have a good routine in place, you can write content that can be compelling for everyone.
So much can come down to the KISS Principle "Keep it simple, stupid". Like everything else in life, there are a lot of exceptions. Much comes down to doing your best to learn how to do it better. I have included some...
Accessibility (a11y) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is complex, but it doesn't have to be hard. If you have a good routine in place, you can write content that can be compelling for everyone.
So much can come down to the KISS Principle "Keep it simple, stupid". Like everything else in life, there are a lot of exceptions. Much comes down to doing your best to learn how to do it better. I have included some...
By Mike Gifford
on 22/05/2018
I've written on our decision to move ahead an accessibility widget in Personalization & Accessibility with Drupal. I thought it would be worthwhile highlighting some of the various options that are currently being used in a number of sites. I do now believe that they are an important part of building more accessible content.
I wanted to highlight a few of the options for preference widgets because there are just so many and there are very few common patterns. Adding an accessibility feature is nice, but it is important that it is discoverable.
Paralympic.ca Site
Features: Nice simple...
I wanted to highlight a few of the options for preference widgets because there are just so many and there are very few common patterns. Adding an accessibility feature is nice, but it is important that it is discoverable.
Paralympic.ca Site
Features: Nice simple...