Category: a11y

Published 2023/11/07

Sounds Like Misophonia

National Disability Employment Awareness Month just ended, but it’s on my mind all year long. I’m making this post in the hope that it will help someone else. Or help some folks better understand me and my non-apparent disabilities.

Misophonia

The most recent episode of The Allusionist podcast hits home for me. It tackles two topics I identify with: misophonia and alexithymia. I’ve always been more sensitive to sensory input (sounds, scents, visuals – especially flashing lights and shaky cam). Over a decade ago I made the connection with misophonia for my auditory issues. All the pieces are falling into place now that I’ve finally been diagnosed with both autism and ADHD. If I ever snapped at you or seemed preoccupied during a meal, or when you were maybe drumming on the back of the car seat I was sitting in (hello my musician friends), this is why.

being over-responsive to sensory information, more tuned into sensory information, and more likely to apply meaning or context to sensory information, and that is really a very common feature in both autism and ADHD and therefore it predisposes that person to develop misophonia
Dr. Jane Gregory

I’ve particularly struggled with the sounds of other people eating. I lived with one partner who clanged cutlery against his teeth and it absolutely enraged me, which made me feel awful. Then I worked for a company that had a cafeteria and expected employees to sit together to eat lunch. The acoustics and lighting in the space were so overwhelming it nearly brought me to tears. I opted to take a daily lunch walk instead and quickly eat at my desk afterward. I’ve developed these coping methods over the years. Avoidance or noise canceling headphones are my main tools.

Alexithymia

Alexithymia is the thing I don’t have a handle on yet. I remember being frustrated when a therapist would ask me to describe my feelings or where in my body I felt them. I have no idea. But now I know *why* I have no idea.

“Alexithymia is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, and describing one’s own emotions. It is associated with difficulties in attachment and interpersonal relations. While there is no scientific consensus on its classification as a personality trait, medical symptom, or mental disorder, alexithymia is highly prevalent among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ranging from 50% to 85% of prevalence.”

The Book

This book contains everything I wish I’d known when I was a teenager, hiding a giant whirring walkman in the pocket of my school uniform so that I could block out the sounds of my classmates clicking through all the colours in their four-pens. It’s not just coping strategies (although there are plenty of those), it’s also full of ideas to help your brain make new associations with sounds, which brings down the intensity of your reactions. I cover some of the exciting research that’s happening in the world of misophonia, connect you with your inner miso child, help you deal with big emotions and embrace the meerkat within. Adeel Ahmad shares stories from our volunteers who worked through the book while it was being written. There are several out-of-date pop culture references, and you’ll be happy to hear that my editors and early readers very firmly encouraged me to remove the rest of them.
Dr. Jane Gregory: Sounds Like Misophonia

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Published 2023/10/15

Getting to Know WCAG 2.2

First, what is WCAG:

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. They are a set of recommendations for making Web content more accessible, primarily for people with disabilities—but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones.
Wikipedia

WCAG Version 1.0 was published in May of 1999. I’d already been a front end web developer for several years at that point. I recall thinking these guidelines were a great idea. Even early on, I understood the inequity of the web and barriers to access. At that time, it was still somewhat rare to have access to the internet at all, via dialup or DSL. But those who did have internet access ran into barriers created by inaccessible Flash files, for example.

As web technologies evolved, the guidelines were updated. WCAG 2.0 was published in December 2008. Nearly a decade later, WCAG 2.1 was published in June of 2018. And, as of October 5th, the WCAG 2.2, is finally official! For those following this closely, it’s felt like a game of Chutes and Ladders. WCAG 2.2 went up the ladder to reach the Candidate Recommendation (CR) phase more than once in the last couple of years. Only to be knocked back down the slide to be reworked.

Initially, Focus Visible was going to bump up from Level AA to Level A in WCAG 2.2. I was thrilled about this. When there are multiple elements on a webpage, visible focus helps highlight which element has the keyboard focus. This helps users who rely on a keyboard to navigate. It shows them which element the keyboard will interact with. Users with attention or short-term memory limitations also benefit from a visual cue to where focus is located. Unfortunately, it’s remaining at Level AA. I’m not the only one disappointed by this. Despite that, other gains have been made.

Level A

3.2.6 Consistent Help: Certain help mechanisms that are repeated on multiple web pages must occur in the same relative order to other page content, unless a change is initiated by the user.
3.3.7 Redundant Entry: Information previously entered by or provided to the user that is required to be entered again in the same process must be: auto-populated or available for the user to select.

Level AA

2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured: When a user interface component receives keyboard focus, the component must not be entirely hidden due to author-created content.
2.5.7 Dragging Movements: All functionality that uses a dragging movement for operation must be achievable by a single pointer without dragging. Unless dragging is essential or the functionality is determined by the user agent and not modified by the author.
2.5.8 Target Size: The size of the target for pointer inputs must be at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels (with some allowable exceptions).
3.3.8 Accessible Authentication: A cognitive function test must not be required for any step in an authentication process, unless specified criteria are met.

Level AAA

2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced): When a user interface component receives keyboard focus, the focus indicator SHOULD NOT be hidden at all (even partially) by author-created content.
2.4.13 Focus Appearance: When the keyboard focus indicator is visible, an area of the focus indicator should meet specified size and color contrast requirements.
3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced): A cognitive function test should not be required for any step in an authentication process, unless there is an alternative method without a required cognitive test or there is a mechanism to assist the user.

Lastly, the obsolete 4.1.1 Parsing has been removed altogether.

The folks at Intopia have already published an updated WCAG 2.2 Map. The map provides an overview of WCAG in a visual format, breaking down success criteria by level of conformance. Their accompanying article is helpful as well.

The WCAG 2.2 Map featuring all success criteria laid out around four quadrants for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.

August Accessibility News Round-Up

Some fun news for a Friday! Writer and wheelchair user Sophie Morgan enjoyed the first wheelchair-accessible safari in South Africa’s Klaserie National Park. “The African bush and all of its delights are just waiting to linger in the memories of those who are able to experience her. Now, the world’s first luxury wheelchair-accessible safari is ensuring that privilege can belong to everyone.”

In the US, here are 10 Wheelchair-friendly Trails Through the Country’s Best National Parks. These accessible national park trails are suitable for people using wheelchairs, scooters, crutches, and walkers.

In my home state, our Great Minnesota Get-Together (State Fair) started just yesterday, Thursday August 24th, 2023. And runs through Labor Day, September 4th, 2023. This year they’ve made some improvements to make it even more inclusive. Their accessibility guide provides information about:

Mobility options, including electrical outlets for recharging electric mobility scooters
ASL interpreting services
Captioning services
Audio description services
Sensory friendly visits
Service animals

Last month was Disability Pride Month. It’s a time for us to celebrate within the disability community, sure. But also to put the spotlight on some challenges we face. In the case of athlete Alex Parra, it is the high cost of athletic prosthetics:

When I was told that a running blade was going to cost $35,000 I thought I was never going to be able to run again. My life changed when I received my running blade from the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Not from my medical provider or from the help of insurance but from a non profit that was willing to help

As time went on I realized there needs to be change so I wanted to bring awareness to the disability community and how much that we have to spend on any disabled equipment or medical devices that we NEED.

So I wanted to run a Marathon on crutches. Although I didn’t finish the 26 miles (16 miles total) I was still able to accomplish something that I never thought I would’ve been capable of doing

This would not have been possible without everyone’s love and support along the way so truly from the bottom of my heart thank you. With your help we have been able to raise a total of $2500 and bring change along the way!
Alex Parra

Last but not least, I love this silent disco story. Vibrating haptic suits give deaf people a new way to feel live music. Made possible by Music: Not Impossible. An off-shoot of Not Impossible Labs, which uses new technology to address social issues like poverty and disability access. A recent event at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts called “Silent Disco: An Evening of Access Magic” showcased the suit’s potential.

Concert goers dancing at the Silent Disco dance party at Lincoln Center, New York City on Saturday, July 1, 2023. Haptic suits designed for the deaf community were provided by Music: Not Impossible. — Lanna Apisukh for NPR

Spring Cleaning for Accessible Content

It is springtime in Minnesota. Which means we reached a high of 88° one April afternoon, then it snowed just days later. Despite the wildly fluctuating weather, I feel the urge to purge. I’ve tossed piles of junk mail in the recycling bin. Winter sweaters will be moved to storage (soon, I hope). Other items will be given away via our local Buy Nothing group. I may not go the full Marie Kondo method with my tidying, but controlling clutter in my physical space makes me feel better, mentally. You know what else sparks joy for me? Accessible content!

Self-portrait holding a lit sparkler in the darkness with the light illuminating my face

Recently, WebAIM released their annual report on the most popular 1,000,000 home pages on the web. 96.3% of them detected WCAG 2 failures. And that’s just what automated testing found. Manual testing would likely reveal many more.

Across the one million home pages, 49,991,225 distinct accessibility errors were detected—an average of 50.0 errors per page.
The WebAIM Million

Many of those pages may not be relevant anymore and could be retired. Or portions of their content are likely out of date. Clean it up! Disability and accessibility expert Sheri Byrne-Haber has a great post about this:

Sometimes the best way to make something #accessible is to get rid of it.

I wrote an article about this a while back – the very first thing accessibility leaders should think about when tackling remediation is “do we need this at all?”

– Do we need this graphic / table?
– Do we need this CAPTCHA?
– Do we need this 17 year old inaccessible report that no one ever opens
– Do we need a press release on the election of someone to the board that is no longer on the board?

Don’t pack all your content indiscriminately and move it over to the new accessible template. Go through a cleanup first, and just bring the valuable content over that your users still need.
Sheri Byrne-Haber on LinkedIn

There’s more on her website. Her blog post Starting a new accessibility remediation project? outlines helpful “approaches and prioritization that will make your end goal of an accessible website easier and cheaper.” As someone who has been involved in many, many content migration projects, I fully back this approach. The most successful ones only ported what was still purposeful. Content that has been removed doesn’t need to be remediated. Unnecessary content is a distraction. Inaccessible content can be a blocker. Slimming websites down to the essentials will reduce cognitive load, making them more usable for everyone. Ditch that carousel no one clicks through. Get rid of that busy graphic. Embrace the joys of minimalism.