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t12t - The Accessibility Newsletter

So many good things are happening within the accessibility space right now so of course it was about time to get another newsletter out.
Also here is a really cool puffin. Is it the spitting image of cool? Yep, that might very well be the case.

An AI seeing app

So Microsoft released an app called Seeing AI which, judged by the videos, looks really good! I really wanted to download and test it out but seems like I can't access it from the Swedish app store. Bummer.
Anyway I'm still really excited about technology like this. Especially seeing how it seems like we are moving into a time where little to no extra effort are needed to make some previous unavailable things available to everyone. There is also an article about this app on the Verge that I think is worth reading.

My first reaction was to be against it

This is a story about a web developer faced with having to make an app accessible. His reaction was to be against it. I've heard and seen this reaction so many times. Making things accessible sounds painful and none of us want our jobs to be painful. What is really uplifting is how this particular developer started to think a bit more on why things actually needs to be accessible. I got really happy by reading this. Way to go!

Tip of the week: Lighthouse in Chrome for Accessibility Audits

Pretty awesome pattern library

Deque is the company behind axe-core which is the base for a lot of a11y testing tools. They recently released a pattern library which is pretty awesome. As people building things for the web we often struggle with how to do it right and sometimes real examples are hard to find. This pattern library are full of good examples. Everything from simple ones like proper checkboxes to things that are more complicated like toasts. Again it's pretty awesome!

The boss battle at the end of accessibility

Another episode called Accessible Modal Dialogs from A11ycasts with Rob Dodson. This time it's all about modals. They can be quite tricky and Rob does call them the boss battle at the end of accessibility. But they are far from impossible so please take your time and watch this if you think there is a chance that you might encounter some modals soon.

Marcy Sutton at Fluent

Innovating with Accessibility in Mind

This is a talk from Fluent by Marcy Sutton. It's short but packed with info. I really loved the creative examples she brought up contradicting the myth that things made accessible needs to be boring and ugly.
Oh, and do you see that t12t-sticker on her computer? Yep that is us!

Buy Lauras book!

I'm a bit hesitant when it comes to recommending books that I haven't read or at least skimmed through. But I have been following Laura Kalbag for a couple of years now and she knows her things. When I heard that she has written a book called Accessibility for Everyone I got excited. Her book is not yet out but you can pre-order it today (which I have done) and expect to get it by the end of September.

What is happening with WCAG 2.1?

It can be a bit tricky sometimes to keep track of what is happening with WCAG 2.1. At least that is how I feel. I think it's a great improvement that they are on Github and accepting public comments and all. But still. I was really happy to stumble by this article breaking down the new changes in WCAG 2.1. Thank you David for writing this!

This is the end of The Puffin. If you liked this consider sending the subscription-link to your friends and colleagues. If you have suggestions or feedback you can email me or find me on Twitter as @t12t or @kolombiken.

- Ida

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