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t12t - The Accessibility Newsletter
A common squirrel monkey sitting in what looks very much like an oak
It's summer in Sweden and a friend of mine requested a monkey for this newsletter. Is it a code monkey? Maybe. Or maybe it's just an awesome monkey being proud about kicking ass up in the trees. 

A book about color accessibility

When I heard about this book I was immediately excited. Colors and accessibility are often forgotten and if people do think about this it's often only about the contrast. But there are so much more to colors than contrast. The author of this book is Geri Coady, a designer and illustrator who has been working with this for a long time and have great knowledge on the subject. This is a perfect book to bring to the park or the beach, it's cheap and it's titled Color Accessibility Workflows!

Reduced motion media queries

I love animations but I also know that they can make some people feel sick. On the other hand animations might also help users make sense of the UI. So it's a double-edged sword. This article on CSS-tricks about reduced motion media queries goes through the why and how and it's quite good. Yes, this query only works in Safari and people have to actively tweak their preferences. Most people probably don't know that this preference exists and even if they do they might think that it's not working since I do believe a lot of developers are unaware and implementations are rare. Regardless it's a start. I'd like to see more things like this. 
The logo of Sonar, a narwhal, sitting behind a computer screen

New and upgraded automated tools

If you are a web developer you might have heard about aXe. No, I'm not talking about a deodorant for men.  aXe is an accessibility engine for automated Web UI testing. It's made by a company called Deque and they recently released version 3.0 of the aXe extension which they write about on their blog. To test it out download the aXe extension for Chrome. There is also a new audit-tool called Sonar who test accessibility by using aXe.
Yes, I know aXe are in multiple places. Lighthouse in Chrome, Sonar, as a standalone extension and you can also have it in your terminal if you want to. Here is a list of projects using aXe. 
One of my favourite tools for automated testing, Testcafé, recently built a module for aXe as well, yay! Personally I prefer the extension for quick tests. Mainly because I think the UI is easier to scan through. 
Tip of the week: A list of free a11y-courses

ID24 in case you missed it

Inclusive Design 24 is an online free (!!!) conference that took place during 24 hours in the beginning of June. If you missed it every ID24 video is available online on Youtube. I haven't had the time to go through them all but have been able to catch a few videos. If you are extremely busy I can recommend you to at least take 8 minutes and watch the story in the beginning of the last video. A talk on design trends and their impact on accessibility by Denis Boudreau.

T12t in Almedalen

The Almedalen Week is an annual event taking place in the city of Visby on the Swedish island Gotland. It's an event for swedish politics with a lot of speeches, seminars and other activities. This year one of those other activities will be a t12t meetup. So if you happen to be near Visby on July 4th you should definitely stop by and have a chat with some good people. More info about t12t in Almedalen on meetup.com. And don't forget the hashtag #almedally on social media. 
Beyond WCAG: Inclusive Design Principles

Fighting for a pension in Bolivia

No, this is not about digital accessibility as we know it. Instead this is a story about some really incredible people fighting for what they believe is their right as citizens. What really got to me was the sad stories about how these people were viewed by some of their family members.
Why did I add this to the newsletter? I believe that in order to create accessible things we need to have empathy and an understanding for other people and because of this I really encourage you to take the time and watch this.

Warning! The video includes some really horrific scenes where people in wheelchairs are met with riot police, barricades, teargas and water cannons. It is very uncomfortable to watch and if it's too much please stop watching.
This is the end of The Monkey. 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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