CategoryAccessibility

July 25, 2022 — In this article, Olushuyi explores a mental model that helps you decide between the <article> and <section> elements when writing documents. You will explore how grouping content affects accessibility and how you can make it all count for users. Read more…

July 7, 2022 — Using a data visualization case study, we will explore how an accessibility-first approach led us down the path of creating a better visual design for charts. Throughout the article, we will highlight how we used the seemingly constraining Web Content Accessibility Standards (WCAG) to become an empowering factor in our design process. We will also discuss how this approach led us to an unexpected yet better outcome for everyone. Read more…

July 6, 2022 — Pricing pages can be complex and confusing. Let’s explore some design patterns, guidelines, real-life examples and best practices on how to design a better pricing page. Read more…

June 24, 2022 — Overcorrecting for one form of disability may unintentionally negatively impact the experience for other forms of disability. For example, partially visually hidden link names may work great for people who use screen readers, but this approach can be problematic for people who rely on voice control software. Because of this, your designs need to be flexible and adaptable, as well as accommodate the many different ways people can interact with them. Read more…

June 15, 2022 — In this article, we’ll see how to make our sites friendly for Windows High Contrast Mode. We’ll check a good set of practices we can use for that purpose, and we’ll see the use of the media query forced-colors and its toolset to tweak our website as needed. Read more…

June 7, 2022 — Computer technologies have simplified the process of recording historical events, technological breakthroughs, contemporary art, and everyday life. However, the notion of digital archiving can be deceptive. Often our technical footprints are carved in sand rather than stone. Read more…

May 31, 2022 — In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we ask why accessibility really matters and why it is so important to get it right. Smashing’s Vitaly Friedman talks in-depth to Sara Soueidan to find out. Read more…

May 26, 2022 — Developing accessible products can be challenging, especially when some of the requirements are beyond the scope of development. It’s one thing to enforce alt text for images and labels for form fields, but another to define an accessible color palette. From working with design handoffs to supporting custom themes in a design system, the CSS color-contrast() function can become a cornerstone for developers in enforcing sufficiently contrasting and accessible UIs. Read more…

May 4, 2022 — How difficult can it be to design a bulletproof language selector? It’s not as straightforward as one might think. We need to avoid redirects, decouple our language and country presets, allow for overrides, and use non-modal windows. Can we fix it? Absolutely! We just need to decouple presets, allow for overrides and allow users to specify their intent. Read more…

April 13, 2022 — Carousels have plenty of accessibility issues, they often exhibit low click-through rates, can be very disruptive when auto-advancing and people frequently scroll past through them. In this series of articles, we highlight design patterns and techniques to design better interfaces. You can find more examples in “Smart Interface Design Patterns”, a 10h-video course with 100s of hand-picked examples, curated by Vitaly. Read more…