AT

How do you know if your website or app is accessible? If you're testing with users of assistive technology (AT) and people with disabilities, this gives you real-life experiences that lead to design improvements. But how do you quantify these results? This presentation will explore why a new measurement tool was needed to effectively capture assistive technology user experiences.

Conversations about money and accessibility are frequently centered on the expenses of implementing accessibility in digital products and applications. Missing from these conversations are the economic realities faced by disabled people and the price of assistive technology. In this talk, we will look into the repercussions of overlooking the reality that individual finances play in digital accessibility.

Accessibility work is complex. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re first starting out – especially if you don’t have access to an accessibility specialist on your team or in your organization. Devon will go through common misconceptions about digital accessibility work and introduce ways to think about disability, assistive technology, and a more holistic approach to accessibility.

Screen readers are a type of assistive technology device that can help all kinds of people, including people with no vision, low vision, cognitive issues, or even non-disabled people who want to hear the words spoken aloud. Join in on the conversation as Tim discusses the best and most popular screen reader/browser combinations, explains some common screen reader commands, and leads us in a screen reader demo!

Participants will learn how various CSS techniques affect content exposure and reading order in screen readers. We will offer robust solutions to overcome screen reader limitations and browser inconsistencies. We have tested over two dozen common CSS declarations in the following browser-AT pairings, and will present our results.

Live regions pop up all over the web, for both good and questionable reasons. They can be intimidating when starting out, and frustrating for those who regularly deal with them. Do you really need a live region for that combobox? How do you make toast notifications noticeable for someone using screen magnification? Why does this one error message refuse to work with VoiceOver, even though it's fine with NVDA? This presentation will take a look at when and how to use different types of live regions, some alternative possibilities, and how to debug problems as they arise.

Long before we crushed tiny candies on our screens, dice games were among some of the first known to be played as far back as 5000 BCE. The theory of play is a well-researched area with roots in anthropology and psychology. Games have emerged throughout human history as an expression of play. Accessible game design is an area that has not been as well researched. In this presentation, you will learn how to get started checking games for accessibility using WCAG 2.1 standards, and how to get started designing your own games.