Dear @microsoft#MSExcel developers: has none of you printed a spreadsheet with #MSWindows set to its built-in #accessibility visual theme, high-contrast black? Because the latest version of #Microsoft365 apps for enterprise prints out black pages with light text. And when I switch the visual theme to the built-in high-contrast white, it prints white pages with black text. Same spreadsheet. That shouldn't happen. #usability
“Sorry, I couldn’t do the reviews nor submit that abstract. We had to hack a replacement for shitty #Sonos app for there’s no way we can do any scholarly work without appropriate music and nap timers”
Understanding What #Drupal Editors and Authors Need
By Megh Plunkett and @ckrina
To validate changes to Drupal’s administration menus and user interface, we employed various types of #usability testing, we ran card sorting exercises, a survey, and several rounds of user testing. #UX
Do you want to learn about accessibility? Well, yes, you should!
Ta11y is a collection of articles on different topics to help you get started, from page structure to colors, font choice keyboard navigation, focus, images, forms, data viz and more.
Free resource: https://www.ta11y.org/learning
The crafting guide in #Repixture has become quite unwieldy because it's a long list of text. So today I've been experimenting with replacing it with a scrollable list of buttons. #usability#GameDev#Minetest
Bloody hell: don’t disable the copy and paste functionality in electronic input forms, dear software developers and managers! Doing so only makes it more difficult for people to enter their information. Do you want to frustrate people to the point of giving up? Scare them away? No? Then allow copy and paste. #usability#accessibility#ux
#usability: The error messages your tools present to a user, must be so helpful and clear, that a user immediately understands what to do to fix it. This is true for hardware (ERR_01 flashing on a LED), and software (“updates failed with error -214747939293641579495”), but also for programming language interpreters (“null is not an object”), build tools (“cannot resolve dependencies because this one dependency couldn’t be resolved”), and compilers (“reference not set to an object”). Do better.
Listen, I love #fedora. Bar none it's one of the best distros out there, but more than that it's been the stomping grounds for #linux#desktop innovation. Don't believe me? You've got #Wayland, #PipeWire, contributions to #xdg, to the Linux kernel proper, etc. Fedora is more than a distro, it's a #comunity of people who wish to push the envelope.
That's why I am for #plasma becoming the new workstation standard, because of the good it did #GNOME. Let me explain...
For me, I'm holding out hope for #plasma 6.2 or something, to come barreling in the door, saying "here am I, freshly dressed and ready to mingle."
I hope that the #usability issues would be solved, like the whole desktop costumizer needs modernising, the various widgets and even theming needs to be finely polished.
Once more, let me step down from my high horse by stating THAT'S A LOT OF WORK. Let's not pretend otherwise. It's easier to review than actually do.
I mean there are many basic iCal implementations and more project management tools that I can count.
But an app, where I can do stuff like ... remind me to take my meds 1h after my alarm goes off ... I want to meet with these 4 friends, can you find a date for us?
Agile was intended to address the problem of waterfall software development: delivering the wrong thing too late.
When "Agile" teams only want to code something once – no acceptance that usability testing might reveal a failing that necessitates another iteration – it's just more waterfall development with Agile-flavoured rituals and ceremonies.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, most of y’all don’t know what it’s like to be a fediverse developer of a popular project and have to deal with all the negative feedback and personal attacks
Let’s be nicer to the devs of the fediverse who have been doing this mostly unpaid for the greater good, all I ask is for basic respect!
Anfora, Prismo, Firefish and dozens of other projects have been abandoned by their devs, and I’d bet the fediverse mentality towards devs is part of the reason
One good way to support the Fediverse's volunteer devs: ask them to work with volunteer design and user-research practitioners who help them to develop and test usable designs – before any substantial code is written.
Testing mockups and prototypes with the community would reduce unhappiness all around.
@bastianallgeier The #usability#UX people recommended that? "Twist and open instead of reaching out for a scissor" OR "You're picnicking and you forgot your knife or scissor".
It is sad to see Jakob Nielsen going from an advocate for accessibility (treat your disabled users as people) to a pessismist (nothing has changed, only AI can help make things better for users with a disability).
Man, do I disagree.
But I alm also worried. His stance really shifted 180 degrees. His latest articles don't sound like him. Either he is being impersonated or these are true signs of dementia.
It’s been way too long (almost 2 years!), but I finally got around to finishing that draft in my drafts folder for the second article in my “screen readers and drag and drop” series: https://www.darins.page/articles/screen-readers-drag-drop-2
This one deals with picking up and putting down draggable items. It’s very long, so skip to the conclusion if you just want the summary.
Qwerty keyboards are laid out to keep the arms of a mechanical typewriter from hitting each other as you type, because letters that are more commonly used side by side are farther apart on the "keyboard".
Thumb typing has different constraints. There's probably a case for a different keyboard layout, now, to reduce common typos.
Who would research new layouts and the demand? One of the O/S publishers?
Sometimes a client asks me a question and I'm a little stunned by their mental model of the world. A few weeks ago, we were discussing the need for better cybersecurity in their architecture. We spoke about several aspects of security, then they asked an outstanding question. "What should I buy to be secure?" It […]
Sometimes a client asks me a question and I'm a little stunned by their mental model of the world.
A few weeks ago, we were discussing the need for better cybersecurity in their architecture. We spoke about several aspects of security, then they asked an outstanding question.
"What should I buy to be secure?"
It took a few moments to tease out exactly what they thought they were asking. In their mental model they could just buy a box which did what they needed. Want to print from any workstation? Buy a big HP network printer. Want to get WiFi in the office? Buy a bunch of access points. Want a website? Buy a WordPress. Want security? Buy a [fill in the blank]?
Their notion is that most things are products. This is a common belief. I've had clients ask "What do I buy to make this accessible?" or "What can I buy to improve usability?"
In all these cases there are unscrupulous people who will sell you a magic cure-all - but the real answer is that these things are a process; not a product.
Yes, you can buy tools which will help improve your security / accessibility / usability etc. But unless you put processes in place to get people to use them effectively, the tools are useless.
People need to understand why something is important. They need processes which support best practices. The business needs a holistic understanding of how these processes improve the business. And that is all underpinned by tools which make it possible.
There's no magic box which can both protect you from your CEO accidentally CCing confidential data to a competitor and stop DDoS attacks. An accessibility overlay won't help you if your staff refuse to incorporate alt text into their workflow. Automated code testing can't stop you building things without testing them with users.
Security is a verb - it is a doing word.
Accessibility is a verb - it is a doing word.
Usability is a verb - it is a doing word.
Okay, accessibility hive mind. I have a weird one and I could use your input.
Hypothetically, say there's a client with confusing link text; think "Request subscription" rather than "Today's newspaper." This example falls apart a little because you have to assume the link goes to today's newspaper for customers with a subscription and cannot and should not redirect to an order page for customers without one.
The client pushes back on changing the link text because they think it will be "legally ambiguous." In their mind, the text "Request subscription" means "Request [your] subscription" and "Today's newspaper" implies something the customer doesn't have (or need) a subscription for. (Obviously, it's higher stakes than newspapers.)
Have you ever had this kind of pushback? How did you handle it?