This is a terrific resource! A pattern library of interactive components: tabs, switches, dialogs, carousels …all the usual suspects.
Each component has an example implementation along with advice and a checklist for ensuring its accessible.
It’s so great to have these all gathered together in one place!
This version of Roboto from Font Bureau is a very variable font indeed.
Prompted by Utopia, Piper shares her methodology for fluid type in Sass.
This font is a crossover of different font types: it is semi-condensed, semi-rounded, semi-geometric, semi-din, semi-grotesque. It employs minimal stoke thickness variations and a semi-closed aperture.
On the surface this is about the pros and cons of minting a new HTML search element to replace div role="search" but there’s a deeper point which is that, while ARIA exists to the plug the gaps in HTML, the long-term goal is to have no gaps.
ARIA is not meant to replace HTML. If anything, the need to use ARIA as ‘polyfill’ for HTML semantics could be considered as a sign and a constant reminder of the fact that HTML falls short on some semantics that benefit users of assistive technologies.
Marvin has some competition! Here’s another beautiful sci-fi variable font:
MD Nichrome is a display typeface based on the typography of paperback science fiction from the 70s and early 80s.
Oh, this is smart! You can’t target pseudo-elements in JavaScript, but you can use custom properties as a proxy instead.
A good tutorial on making password fields accessible when you’ve got the option to show and hide the input.
Robin makes a good point here about using dark mode thinking as a way to uncover any assumptions you might have unwittingly baked into your design:
Given its recent popularity, you might believe dark mode is a fad. But from a design perspective, dark mode is exceptionally useful. That’s because a big part of design is about building relationships between colors. And so implementing dark mode essentially forced everyone on the team to think long, hard, and consistently about our front-end design components. In short, dark mode helped our design system not only look good, but make sense.
So even if you don’t actually implement dark mode, acting as though it’s there will give you a solid base to build in.
I did something similar with the back end of Huffduffer and The Session—from day one, I built them as though the interface would be available in multiple languages. I never implemented multi-language support, but just the awareness of it saved me from baking in any shortcuts or assumptions, and enforced a good model/view/controller separation.
For most front-end codebases, the design of your color system shows you where your radioactive styles are. It shows you how things are tied together, and what depends on what.
I really like the approach that Carie takes here. Instead of pointing to specific patterns to use, she provides a framework for evaluating technology. Solutions come and go but this kind of critical thinking is a long-lasting skill.
Oh, nice! A version of the classic Proxima Nova that’s a variable font that allows you to vary weight, width, and slant.
A reminder that the contens of custom properties don’t have to be valid property values:
From a syntax perspective, CSS variables are “extremely permissive”.
This is a very handy table of elements from Steve of where aria-label can be applied.
Like, for example, not on a div element.
A very handy community project that documents support for ARIA and native HTML accessibility features in screen readers and browsers.
Van11y (for Vanilla-Accessibility) is a collection of accessible scripts for rich interfaces elements, built using progressive enhancement and customisable.
A handy reminder from Léonie (though remember that the best solution is to avoid the problem in the first place—if you avoid using ARIA, do that).
A score of 100 in Lighthouse or 0 errors in axe doesn’t mean that you’re done, it means that you’re ready to start manual testing and testing with real users, if possible.
Smart thinking from Sara to improve usability for keyboard users by using aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" to skip duplicate links:
A good rule of thumb for similar cases is that if you have multiple consecutive links to the same page, there is probably a chance to improve keyboard navigation by skipping some of those links to reduce the number of tab stops to one. The less tab stops, the better, as long as it does not worsen or compromise on other aspects of usability.
I’ve cautiously implemented this pattern now over on The Session where snippets of comments had both a title link and a “more” link going to the same destination.
Ever wanted to set some text in 70% Times New Roman and 30% Arial? Me neither. But now, thanks to variable fonts, you can!
This is such a clever use of variable fonts!
We can use a lighter font weight to make the text easier to read whenever dark mode is active.