Beast-Blog.com
Mike Cherim's Professional and Personal Web Log

What are your thoughts about “Breaking Barriers?”

I published an article at Accessites.org entitled “Breaking Barriers” and decided to make this post so public comments could be taken in response to the piece should readers so desire.

Continue reading “Comments on “Breaking Barriers”” »

It all began harmlessly one evening with a single utterance: “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could plug in a web address and go to the site, but have it converted to a perfect grayscale instead of full-color…? you know, to check its contrast accessibility. An online tool. Think Google-simple. Colors can be misleading when looking at a site, but grayscale never lies. Well, things stared happening fast after that. Next thing I know a real application, just like that envisioned, begins to come to life. Born is GrayBit. Where turning gray is cool!

Continue reading “GrayBit Goes Live” »

Link sharing is becoming quite popular on the web, and there’s a new service in town that facilitates this sharing. Specifically I speak of Ma·gnolia. There I started a group, Accessible Web Developers which shares bookmarks related to accessible web development, of course.

Continue reading “My Links are Your Links” »

The idea here is to provide that which is needed only to deliver the content in a smooth and natural way.

The proper use of the alt attribute is perhaps one of the most misused, misunderstood, and most debated attributes. I’m not going to set out and try to change that or anyone’s thinking, but luckily I have permission from the owner to give you my hopefully comprehensive views and opinion, and that’s what I want to do, at least as it pertains to the use of the alt attribute on an accessible website.

Continue reading “The Alt and Accessibility” »

That’s all there is to it. Save the files and go. You’re done.

After playing around with some modifications to Dan Champion’s Accesskey Script in use at Accessites.org, I discovered a significant improvement to the self-returning form result to make it more accessible. I have recently been going through my forms, starting with those on the site mentioned above, one at a time, improving their level of accessibility by adding a simple ID to the results heading and a bookmark pointing to the results heading on the form submit self-target. I haven’t changed my PHP contact form download (yet), but herein I will describe the changes which are quite simple to implement so you may do it yourself.

Continue reading “Accessible Form Results” »

Big news! Accessites.org, after six months of careful planning [Read: five-and-a-half months of procrastination, followed by a two-week rush], has finally launched and seems already to be a hit. It’s a good thing it is because it’s for a good cause: To promote solid design. To change some perceptions and misconceptions about accessible websites.

Continue reading “Accessites.org Launches” »

With block links you can create large and distinctive links

Mark-up, specifically HTML and XHTML, is found in two basic forms (display types): In-line mark-up and block level mark-up. In-line mark-up consists of things like links, spans, emphasis elements, etc. Block level mark-up, on the other hand, consists of paragraphs, headings, blockquotes, lists, etc. As you may or may not know, some of these elements can be styled opposite to their natural, default state. For example, lists, which are normally block level and render vertically by default, can be styled with your CSS to render horizontally or in-line. And to exemplify the opposite, certain in-line mark-up, like links, for example, can be styled with your CSS to render as block level elements.

Continue reading “Building Basic Block Links” »

It took a long time for me to get around to doing it, but I have finally submitted a CSS style sheet, an elastic design, to the CSS Zen Garden in hopes that it’ll be accepted as an official design. I have no idea if my submission is good enough. It’s not as fancy as many of the designs. I went with a straight-forward approach with keen emphasis on providing as many accessibility features as I could without touching the HTML mark-up. I succeeded well on this front, and this will hopefully be good for other web accessibilities advocates. Especially if the design becomes official.

Continue reading “CSS Zen Garden: Access Granted?” »

Here on this web log and on any page on my website I employ hidden focal navigation, “skip links” or “jump links” and such. I do this for the benefit of people not enjoying a proper visual display because they are using screen readers or they’re keyboard users. The latter, the keyboard user, is a prime example of how this plays a role. You see, a person using their keyboard to get around a site jumps from anchor to anchor (link to link). Now imagine having to tab through a long list of links to get from point A to point B. What a drag that would be. Jump links allow users to bypass certain sections. So what’s the solution? One is to provide these jump links at the top of the page leading all the way to the first content heading or div. I did this very thing at GreenMethods.com, top of each page, check it out. It works on that site. It fits. It doesn’t here, though… it wouldn’t look right. So what do I do, just forget about it, right? Some people will just have to deal, right? Wrong. The Jump Links are there, look again.

Continue reading “Hidden Focal Navigation” »