Olivia Hall

Tech Notes Ensuring everyone can access digital content is one of our primary goals at AFB. One high-impact, easy-to-start way to make digital content more inclusive is to include alternate text, or alt text. Alternate text is simply a concise description of an image provided as metadata with the image. Content creators, marketers, web designers, and web developers should always include image descriptions as a part of their workflow. This simple addition improves website, marketing material,…

Tech Notes Screen reader software presents computer content verbally through audio or through braille displays. This software achieves this by taking the computer’s content, which may not necessarily be presented in a linear format visually, and transforming it to a form where every piece of content is either before or after the next. This forms a navigable document with which screen reader users can interact, eliminating the need for a monitor or display. While principally used by people who…

Tech Notes Managing focus on a web page is a very common accessibility issue. “Focus,” in this sense, refers to the element on the screen that is currently active or selected. It specifies where the user is currently located on the web page. Screen readers have a specific key command to tell what the currently focused element is. Moving before and after the element also gives a sense of structure and the element’s order on the page. Visually, you can tell an element has focus by looking for…

Tech Notes Have you ever pulled on a door handle expecting the door to open, only to find out you needed to push? Usually these doors are in a public space, have an ambiguous bar, and are never clear if you need to push or pull. If you are lucky, worn letters or braille of “Push” or “Pull” might be marked on the handle. After much struggle, everyone eventually sheepishly opens the door. People sometimes feel as if they should have remembered how the door opens, which is not the case. The door…