{"rowid": 245, "title": "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1\u2014for People Who Haven\u2019t Read the Update", "contents": "Happy United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2018! The United Nations chose \u201cEmpowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality\u201d as this year\u2019s theme. We\u2019ve seen great examples of that in 2018; for example, Paul Robert Lloyd has detailed how he improved the accessibility of this very website. \nOn social media, US Congressmember-Elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started using the Clipomatic app to add live captions to her Instagram live stories, conforming to success criterion 1.2.4, \u201cCaptions (Live)\u201d of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (figure 1) \u2026and British Vogue Contributing Editor Sin\u00e9ad Burke has used the split-screen feature of Instagram live stories to invite an interpreter to provide live Sign Language interpretation, going above and beyond success criterion 1.2.6, \u201cSign Language (Prerecorded)\u201d of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (figure 2).\n\nFigure 1: Screenshot of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s Instagram story with live captionsFigure 2: Screenshot of Sin\u00e9ad Burke\u2019s Instagram story with Sign Language Interpretation\nThat theme chimes with this year\u2019s publication of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)\u2019s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. In last year\u2019s \u201cWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines\u2014for People Who Haven\u2019t Read Them\u201d, I mentioned the scale of the project to produce this update during 2018: \u201cthe editors have to update the guidelines to cover all the new ways that people interact with new technologies, while keeping the guidelines backwards-compatible\u201d. \nThe WCAG working group have added 17 success criteria to the 61 that they released way back in 2008\u2014for context, that was 1\u00bd years before Apple released their first iPad! These new criteria make it easier than ever for us web geeks to produce work that is more accessible to people using mobile devices and touchscreens, people with low vision, and people with cognitive and learning disabilities. \nOnce again, let\u2019s rip off all the legalese and ambiguous terminology like wrapping paper, and get up to date.\nCan your users perceive the information on your website?\nThe first guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhat the **** is this thing here supposed to be?\u201d We\u2019ve seven new criteria for this guideline.\n1.3.4 Some people can\u2019t easily change the orientation of the device that they use to browse the web, and so you should make sure that your users can use your website in portrait orientation and in landscape orientation. Consider how people slowly twirl presents that they have plucked from under the Christmas tree, to find the appropriate orientation\u2014and expect your users to do likewise with your websites and apps. We\u2019ve had 18\u00bd years since John Allsopp\u2019s revelatory Dao of Web Design enlightened us to \u201cembrace the fact that the web doesn\u2019t have the same constraints\u201d as printed pages, and to \u201cdesign for this flexibility\u201d. So, even though this guideline doesn\u2019t apply to websites where \u201ca specific display orientation is essential,\u201d such as a piano tutorial, always ask yourself, \u201cWhat would John Allsopp do?\u201d\n1.3.5 You should help the user\u2019s browser to automatically complete\u2013or not complete\u2013form fields, to save the user some time and effort. The surprisingly powerful and flexible autocomplete attribute for input elements should prove most useful here. If you\u2019ve used microformats or microdata to mark up information about a person, the autocomplete attribute\u2019s range of values should seem familiar. I like how the W3\u2019s \u201cUsing HTML 5.2 autocomplete attributes\u201d says that autocompleted values in forms help \u201cthose with dexterity disabilities who have trouble typing, those who may need more time, and anyone who wishes to reduce effort to fill out a form\u201d (emphasis mine). Um\u2026\ud83d\ude4b\u200d\u2642\ufe0f\n1.3.6 I like this one a lot, because it can help a huge audience to overcome difficulties that might prevent them from ever using the web. Some people have cognitive difficulties that affect their memory, focus, attention, language processing, and/or decision-making. Those users often rely on assistive technologies that present information through proprietary symbols, summaries of content, and keyboard shortcuts. You could use ARIA landmarks to identify the regions of each webpage. You could also keep an eye on the W3C\u2019s ongoing work on Personalisation Semantics.\n1.4.10 If you were to find a Nintendo Switch and \u201cSuper Mario Odyssey\u201d under your Christmas tree, you would have many hours of enjoyably scrolling horizontally and vertically to play the game. On the other hand, if you had to zoom a webpage to 400% so that you could read the content, you might have many hours of frustratedly scrolling horizontally and vertically to read the content. Learned reader, I assume you understand the purpose and the core techniques of Responsive Web Design. I also assume you\u2019re getting up to speed with the new Grid, Flexbox, and Box Alignment techniques for layout, and overflow-wrap. Using those skills, you should make sure that all content and functionality remain available when the browser is 320px wide, without your user needing to scroll horizontally. (For vertical text, you should make sure that all content and functionality remain available when the browser is 256px high, without your user needing to scroll vertically.) You don\u2019t have to do this for anything that would lose meaning if you restructured it into one narrow column. That includes some images, maps, diagrams, video, games, presentations, and data tables. Remember to check how your media queries affect font size: your user might find that text becomes smaller as they zoom into the webpage. So, test this one on real devices, or\u2014better yet\u2014test it with real users.\n1.4.11 In \u201cWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines\u2014for People Who Haven\u2019t Read Them\u201d, I recommended bookmarking Lea Verou\u2019s Contrast Ratio calculator for checking that text contrasts enough with its background (for success criteria 1.4.3 and 1.4.6), so that more people can read it more easily. For this update, you should make sure that form elements and their focus states have a 3:1 contrast ratio with the colour around them. This doesn\u2019t apply to controls that use the browser\u2019s default styling. Also, you should make sure that graphics that convey information have a 3:1 contrast ratio with the colour around them.\n1.4.12 Some people, due to low vision or dyslexia, might need to modify the typography that you agonised over. Research indicates that you should make sure that all content and functionality would remain available if a user were to set:\n\nline height to at least 1\u00bd \u00d7 the font size;\nspace below paragraphs to at least 2 \u00d7 the font size;\nletter spacing to at least 0.12 \u00d7 the font size;\nword spacing to at least 0.16 \u00d7 the font size.\n\nTo test this, check for text overlapping, text hiding behind other elements, or text disappearing.\n1.4.13 Sometimes when visiting a website, you hover over\u2014or tab on to\u2014something that unleashes a newsletter subscription pop-up, some suggested \u201crelated content\u201d, and/or a GDPR-related pop-up. On a well-designed website, you can press the Esc key on your keyboard or click a prominent \u201cClose\u201d button or \u201cX\u201d button to vanquish such intrusions. If the Esc key fails you, or if you either can\u2019t see or can\u2019t click the \u201cClose\u201d button\u2026well, you\u2019ll probably just close that browser tab. This situation can prove even more infuriating for users with low vision or cognitive disabilities. So, if new content appears when your user hovers over or tabs on to some element, you should make sure that:\n\nyour user can dismiss that content without needing to move their pointer or tab on to some other element (this doesn\u2019t apply to error warnings, or well-behaved content that doesn\u2019t obscure or replace other content);\nthe new content remains visible while your user moves their cursor over it;\nthe new content remains visible as long as the user hovers over that element or dismisses that content\u2014or until the new content is no longer valid.\n\nThis doesn\u2019t apply to situations such as hovering over an element\u2019s title attribute, where the user\u2019s browser controls the display of the content that appears.\nCan users operate the controls and links on your website?\nThe second guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cHow the **** does this thing work?\u201d We\u2019ve nine new criteria for this guideline.\n2.1.4 Some websites offer keyboard shortcuts for users. For example, the keyboard shortcuts for Gmail allow the user to press the \u21e7 key and u to mark a message as unread. Usually, shortcuts on websites include modifier keys, such as Ctrl, along with a letter, number, or punctuation symbol. Unfortunately, users who have dexterity challenges sometimes trigger those shortcuts by accident, and that can make a website impossible to use. Also, speech input technology can sometimes trigger those shortcuts. If your website offers single-character keyboard shortcuts, you must allow your user to turn off or remap those shortcuts. This doesn\u2019t apply to single-character keyboard shortcuts that only work when a control, such as drop-down list, has focus.\n2.2.6 If your website uses a timeout for some process, you could store the user\u2019s data for at least 20 hours, so that users with cognitive disabilities can take a break or take longer than usual to complete the process without losing their place or losing their data. Alternatively, you could warn the user, at the start of the process, about that the website will timeout after whatever amount of time you have chosen. \n2.3.3 If your website has some non-essential animation (such as parallax scrolling) that starts when the user does some particular action, you could allow the user to turn off that animation so that you avoid harming users with vestibular disorders. The prefers-reduced-motion media query currently has limited browser support, but you can start using it now to avoid showing animations to users who select the \u201cReduce Motion\u201d setting (or equivalent) in their device\u2019s operating system:\n@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {\n  .MrFancyPants {\n    animation: none;\n  }\n}\n2.5.1 Some websites let users use multi-touch gestures on touchscreen devices. For example, Google Maps allows users to pinch with two fingers to zoom out and \u201cunpinch\u201d with two fingers to zoom in. Also, some websites allow users to drag a finger to do some action, such as changing the value on an input element with type=\"range\", or swiping sideways to the next photograph in a gallery. Some users with dexterity challenges, and some users who use a head pointer, an eye-gaze system, or speech-controlled mouse emulation, might find multi-touch gestures or dragging impossible. You must make sure that your website supports single-tap alternatives to any multi-touch gestures or dragging actions that it provides. For example, if your website lets someone pinch and unpinch a map to zoom in and out, you must also provide buttons that a user can tap to zoom in and out.\n2.5.2 This might be my favourite accessibility criterion ever! Did you ever touch or press a \u201cSend\u201d button but then immediately realise that you really didn\u2019t want to send the message, and so move your finger or cursor away from the \u201cSend\u201d button before lifting your finger?! Imagine how many arguments that functionality has prevented. \ud83d\ude0c You must make sure that touching or pressing does not cause anything to happen before the user raises their finger or cursor, or make sure that the user can move their finger or cursor away to prevent the action. In JavaScript, prefer onclick to onmousedown, unless your website has actions that need onmousedown. Also, this doesn\u2019t apply to actions that need to happen as soon as the user clicks or touches. For example, a user playing a \u201cWhac-A-Mole\u201d game or a piano emulator needs the action to happen as soon as they click or touch the screen.\n2.5.3 Recently, entrepreneur and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk has emphasised the rise of audio and voice as output and input. He quotes a Google statistic that says one in five search queries use voice input. Once again, users with disabilities have been ahead of the curve here, having used screen readers and/or dictation software for many years. You must make sure that the text that appears on a form control or image matches how your HTML identifies that form control or image. Use proper semantic HTML to achieve this:\n\nuse the label element to pair text with the corresponding input element;\nuse an alt attribute value that exactly matches any text that appears in an image;\nuse an aria-labelledby attribute value that exactly matches the text that appears in any complex component.\n\n2.5.4 Modern Web APIs allow web developers to specify how their website will react to the user shaking, tilting, or gesturing towards their device. Some users might find those actions difficult, impossible, or embarrassing to perform. If you make any functionality available when the user shakes, tilts, or gestures towards their device, you must provide form controls that make that same functionality available. As usual, this doesn\u2019t apply to websites that require shaking, tilting, or gesturing; this includes some games and music programmes. John Gruber describes the iPhone\u2019s \u201cShake to Undo\u201d gesture as \u201cdreadful \u2014 impossible to discover through exploration of the on-screen [user interface], bad for accessibility, and risks your phone flying out of your hand\u201d. This accessibility criterion seems to empathise with John: you must make sure that your user can prevent your website from responding to shaking, tilting and/or gesturing towards their device.\n2.5.5 Homer Simpson\u2019s telephone famously complained, \u201cThe fingers you have used to dial are too fat.\u201d I think we\u2019ve all felt like that when using phones and tablets, particularly when trying to dismiss pop-ups and ads. You could make interactive elements at least 44px wide \u00d7 44px high. Apple\u2019s \u201cHuman Interface Guidelines\u201d agree: \u201cProvide ample touch targets for interactive elements. Try to maintain a minimum tappable area of 44pt x 44pt for all controls.\u201d This doesn\u2019t apply to links within inline text, or to unsoiled elements.\n2.5.6 Expect your users to use a variety of input devices they want, and to change from one to another whenever they please. For example, a user with a tablet and keyboard might jab icons on the screen while typing on the keyboard, or a user might dictate text while alone and then type on a keyboard when a colleague arrives. You could make sure that your website allows your users to use whichever available input modality they choose. Once again, this doesn\u2019t apply to websites that require a specific modality; this includes typing tutors and music programmes.\nCan users understand your content?\nThe third guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhat the **** does this mean?\u201d We\u2019ve no new criteria for this guideline. \nHave you made your website robust enough to work on your users\u2019 browsers and assistive technologies?\nThe fourth and final guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhy the **** doesn\u2019t this work on my device?\u201d We\u2019ve one new criterion for this guideline.\n4.1.3 Sometimes you need to let your user know the status of something: \u201cDid it work OK? What was the error? How far through it are we?\u201d However, you should avoid making your user lose their place on the webpage, and so you should let them know the status without opening a new window, focusing on another element, or submitting a form. To do this properly for assistive technology users, choose the appropriate ARIA role for the new content; for example:  \n\nif your user needs to know, \u201cDid it work OK?\u201d, add role=\"status\u201d;\nif your user needs to know, \u201cWhat was the error?\u201d, add role=\"alert\u201d;\nif you user needs to know, \u201cHow far through it are we?\u201d, add role=\"log\" (for a chat window) or role=\"progressbar\" (for, well, a progress bar).\n\nBetter design for humans\nMy favourite of Luke Wroblewski\u2019s collection of Design Quotes is, \u201cDesign is the art of gradually applying constraints until only one solution remains,\u201d   from that most prolific author, \u201cUnknown\u201d. I\u2019ve always viewed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as people-based constraints, and liked how they help the design process. With these 17 new web content accessibility criteria, go forth and create solutions that more people than ever before can use.\nSpending those book vouchers you got for Christmas\nWhat next? If you\u2019re looking for something to do to keep you busy this Christmas, I thoroughly recommend these four books for increasing your accessibility expertise:\n\n\u201cPro HTML5 Accessibility\u201d by Joshue O Connor (Head of Accessibility (Interim) at the UK Government Digital Service, Director of InterAccess, and one of the editors of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1): Although this book is six years old\u2014a long time in web design\u2014I find it an excellent go-to resource. It begins by explaining how people with disabilities use the web, and then expertly explains modern HTML in that context.\n\u201cA Web for Everyone\u2014Designing Accessible User Experiences\u201d by Sarah Horton (the Paciello Group\u2019s UX Strategy Lead) and Whitney Quesenbery (the Center for Civic Design\u2019s co-director): This book covers the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, the principles of Universal Design, and design thinking. Its personas for Accessible UX and its profiles of well-known industry figures\u2014including some 24ways authors\u2014keep its content practical and relevant throughout.\n\u201cAccessibility For Everyone\u201d by Laura Kalbag (Ind.ie\u2019s co-founder and designer, and 24ways author): This book is just over a year old, and so serves as a great resource for up-to-date coverage of guidelines, laws, and accessibility features of operating systems\u2014as well as content, design, coding, and testing. The audiobook, which Laura narrates, can help you and your colleagues go from having little or no understanding of web accessibility, to becoming familiar with all aspects of web accessibility\u2014in less than four hours.\n\u201cJust Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design\u201d by Shawn Lawton Henry (the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)\u2019s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)\u2019s Outreach Coordinator): Although this book is 11\u00bd years old, the way it presents accessibility as part of the User-Centered Design process is timeless. I found its section on Usability Testing with people with disabilities particularly useful.", "year": "2018", "author": "Alan Dalton", "author_slug": "alandalton", "published": "2018-12-03T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2018/wcag-for-people-who-havent-read-the-update/", "topic": "ux"}
{"rowid": 262, "title": "Be the Villain", "contents": "Inclusive Design is the practice of making products and services accessible to, and usable by as many people as reasonably possible without the need for specialized accommodations. The practice was popularized by author and User Experience Design Director Kat Holmes. If getting you to discover her work is the only thing this article succeeds in doing then I\u2019ll consider it a success.\nAs a framework for creating resilient solutions to problems, Inclusive Design is incredible. However, the aimless idealistic aspirations many of its newer practitioners default to can oftentimes run into trouble. Without outlining concrete, actionable outcomes that are then vetted by the people you intend to serve, there is the potential to do more harm than good. \nWhen designing, you take a user flow and make sure it can\u2019t be broken. Ensuring that if something is removed, it can be restored. Or that something editable can also be updated at a later date\u2014you know, that kind of thing. What we want to do is avoid surprises. Much like a water slide with a section of pipe missing, a broken flow forcibly ejects a user, to great surprise and frustration. Interactions within a user flow also have to be small enough to be self-contained, so as to avoid creating a none pizza with left beef scenario.\nLately, I\u2019ve been thinking about how to expand on this practice. Watertight user flows make for a great immediate experience, but it\u2019s all too easy to miss the forest for the trees when you\u2019re a product designer focused on cranking out features. \nWhat I\u2019m concerned about is while to trying to envision how a user flow could be broken, you also think about how it could be subverted. In addition to preventing the removal of a section of water slide, you also keep someone from mugging the user when they shoot out the end.\nIf you pay attention, you\u2019ll start to notice this subversion with increasing frequency:\n\nDomestic abusers using internet-controlled devices to spy on and control their partner.\nZealots tanking a business\u2019 rating on Google because its owners spoke out against unchecked gun violence.\nForcing people to choose between TV or stalking because the messaging center portion of a cable provider\u2019s entertainment package lacks muting or blocking features.\nWhite supremacists tricking celebrities into endorsing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.\nFacebook repeatedly allowing housing, credit, and employment advertisers to discriminate against users by their race, ability, and religion.\nWhite supremacists also using a video game chat service as a recruiting tool.\nThe unchecked harassment of minors on Instagram.\nSwatting.\n\nIf I were to guess why we haven\u2019t heard more about this problem, I\u2019d say that optimistically, people have settled out of court. Pessimistically, it\u2019s most likely because we ignore, dismiss, downplay, and suppress those who try to bring it to our attention. \nSubverted design isn\u2019t the practice of employing Dark Patterns to achieve your business goals. If you are not familiar with the term, Dark Patterns are the use of cheap user interface tricks and psychological manipulation to get users to act against their own best interests. User Experience consultant Chris Nodder wrote Evil By Design, a fantastic book that unpacks how to detect and think about them, if you\u2019re interested in this kind of thing\nSubverted design also isn\u2019t beholden design, or simple lack of attention. This phenomenon isn\u2019t even necessarily premeditated. I think it arises from na\u00efve (or willfully ignorant) design decisions being executed at a historically unprecedented pace and scale. These decisions are then preyed on by the shrewd and opportunistic, used to control and inflict harm on the undeserving. Have system, will game.\nThis is worth discussing. As the field of design continues to industrialize empathy, it also continues to ignore the very established practice of threat modeling. Most times, framing user experience in terms of how to best funnel people into a service comes with an implicit agreement that the larger system that necessitates the service is worth supporting. \nTo achieve success in the eyes of their superiors, designers may turn to emotional empathy exercises. By projecting themselves into the perceived surface-level experiences of others, they play-act at understanding how to nudge their targeted demographics into a conversion funnel. This roleplaying exercise has the effect of scoping concerns to the immediate, while simultaneously reinforcing the idea of engagement at all cost within the identified demographic.\nThe thing is, pure engagement leaves the door wide open for bad actors. Even within the scope of a limited population, the assumption that everyone entering into the funnel is acting with good intentions is a poor one. Security researchers, network administrators, and other professionals who practice threat modeling understand that the opposite is true. By preventing everyone save for well-intentioned users from operating a system within the parameters you set for them, you intentionally limit the scope of abuse that can be enacted.\nDon\u2019t get me wrong: being able to escort as many users as you can to the happy path is a foundational skill. But we should also be having uncomfortable conversations about why something unthinkable may in fact not be. \nThey\u2019re not going to be fun conversations. It\u2019s not going to be easy convincing others that these aren\u2019t paranoid delusions best tucked out of sight in the darkest, dustiest corner of the backlog. Realistically, talking about it may even harm your career.\nBut consider the alternative. The controlled environment of the hypothetical allows us to explore these issues without propagating harm. Better to be viewed as the office\u2019s resident villain than to have to live with something like this:\n\nIf the past few years have taught us anything, it\u2019s that the choices we make\u2014or avoid making\u2014have consequences. Design has been doing a lot of growing up as of late, including waking up to the idea that technology isn\u2019t neutral. \nYou\u2019re going to have to start thinking the way a monster does\u2014if you can imagine it, chances are someone else can as well. To get into this kind of mindset, inverting the Inclusive Design Principles is a good place to start:\n\nProviding a comparable experience becomes forcing a single path.\nConsidering situation becomes ignoring circumstance.\nBeing consistent becomes acting capriciously.\nGiving control becomes removing autonomy. \nOffering choice becomes limiting options. \nPrioritizing content becomes obfuscating purpose.\nAdding value becomes filling with gibberish. \n\nCombined, these inverted principles start to paint a picture of something we\u2019re all familiar with: a half-baked, unscrupulous service that will jump at the chance to take advantage of you. This environment is also a perfect breeding ground for spawning bad actors.\nThese kinds of services limit you in the ways you can interact with them. They kick you out or lock you in if you don\u2019t meet their unnamed criteria. They force you to parse layout, prices, and policies that change without notification or justification. Their controls operate in ways that are unexpected and may shift throughout the experience. Their terms are dictated to you, gaslighting you to extract profit. Heaps of jargon and flashy, unnecessary features are showered on you to distract from larger structural and conceptual flaws.\nSo, how else can we go about preventing subverted design? Marli Mesibov, Content Strategist and Managing Editor of UX Booth, wrote a brilliant article about how to use Dark Patterns for good\u2014perhaps the most important takeaway being admitting you have a problem in the first place. \nAnother exercise is asking the question, \u201cWhat is the evil version of this feature?\u201d Ask it during the ideation phase. Ask it as part of acceptance criteria. Heck, ask it over lunch. I honestly don\u2019t care when, so long as the question is actually raised. \nIn keeping with the spirit of this article, we can also expand on this line of thinking. Author, scientist, feminist, and pacifist Ursula Franklin urges us to ask, \u201cWhose benefits? Whose risks?\u201d instead of \u201cWhat benefits? What risks?\u201d in her talk, When the Seven Deadly Sins Became the Seven Cardinal Virtues. Inspired by the talk, Ethan Marcotte discusses how this relates to the web platform in his powerful post, Seven into seven.\nFew things in this world are intrinsically altruistic or good\u2014it\u2019s just the nature of the beast. However, that doesn\u2019t mean we have to stand idly by when harm is created. If we can add terms like \u201canti-pattern\u201d to our professional vocabulary, we can certainly also incorporate phrases like \u201cabuser flow.\u201d \nDesign finally got a seat at the table. We should use this newfound privilege wisely. Listen to women. Listen to minorities, listen to immigrants, the unhoused, the less economically advantaged, and the less technologically-literate. Listen to the underrepresented and the underprivileged.\nSubverted design is a huge problem, likely one that will never completely go away. However, the more of us who put the hard work into being the villain, the more we can lessen the scope of its impact.", "year": "2018", "author": "Eric Bailey", "author_slug": "ericbailey", "published": "2018-12-06T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2018/be-the-villain/", "topic": "ux"}