Sanna Kramsi – Blog

WebAIM Million 2026 is out!

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:31:06 GMT

Once again, we got some accessibility data to go through. And once again, the results are quite disappointing.

The number of errors has once again gone up. 95.9% of home pages have accessibility errors. This number is higher than last year of 94.8%, which makes it so much sadder.

All of the issues mentioned in the Million report are found with automated tools. So there are likely many more errors on the pages than just these.

Most common errors

All the most common errors are still the same as they have been in previous years:

Low contrast text
Missing alt text
Missing labels
Empty links
Empty buttons
Missing language

When looking at the graphs about these errors, only missing alt text and missing language have gone down a bit. The others have gotten worse.

While sometimes the low contrast text can be a false positive, the fact that it's so prevalent on the home pages is scary.

ARIA

Use of ARIA has increased quite a bit from last year. According to the report, there are over 133 per page on average. That is a huge amount of ARIA. ARIA code increased 27% in a year.

The use of ARIA doesn't automatically mean more errors; it can also mean that the homepages are more complex. But based on my experience with ARIA use, it's unfortunately quite likely that there are a lot of errors in ARIA use.

## Be careful when vibe coding
There is quite a lot of AI coding going on right now, and I'm not saying it's all bad. I use AI as well. But we cannot trust that the AI tools will create accessible implementations.

Just these few last things I've created have had accessibility issues in the original code that the tool provided.

AI is not smart, and it doesn't know accessibility. So we need to be careful and do more thorough testing to ensure we create accessible solutions.

Start monitoring your content

If all site owners used an automated tool to monitor their sites and fix the issues, all of these could be fixed. Most of these errors are small to fix.

We will never be perfect, and there will always be errors and mistakes, but I don't like that we do systematically inaccessible things. So, could we start monitoring our sites this year and get started on improving the content online? There are so many tools available that there is really no excuse not to do it. The free tools will require you to do more manual work, while the paid tools can usually lessen the manual work.

We, as content creators and service providers, have a responsibility to do everything we can to make things accessible. Let's do our part to make next year's report even a bit better again!

Take a look at the Million report; even though it's sad, the content is still really interesting. And the possibility of searching for domains is helpful. I occasionally report back to my clients if their position in the listing changes in a positive way or if there are new content-related errors. It's always nice to be able to tell a client that their efforts are showing.

Getting to talk some accessibility in videos at work

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:22:06 GMT

We had a couple of video shoots last fall at Exove. One was one-on-one with the interviewee and our amazing marketing person. There were a few of us who got to shoot some quick videos on various topics for our social media. I don't expect anyone to be surprised that my videos were about accessibility. :)

The other videos were done with our partner Norders, and the setup was maybe ever so slightly more professional. I was suggested a video concept of a recipe book, and then the plan was to have two videos. From there on, I had some time to think about what might work as a video and then have a sparring session with our partner as well as our marketing person. The topics we decided on were accessible content and then AI, because it is a hype at the moment. We will see when the AI bubble bursts.

Planning the content

First thing I did was to ensure that I got the recipe book concept right and that I knew what type of things might work. Then I did some initial thinking of what I wanted to say and got some extra support for bouncing ideas around with AI. Once I had a draft version of the script in place, we had the sparring sessions I mentioned earlier. Then I went on to finish the planning of the content.

Preparing for the videos

Once the content was in place, I started doing practice runs of the video content. We had agreed on certain time "limits" - or preferences for the videos, and I wanted to make sure I had both enough content and not too much of it. I have a habit of practising as much as possible to avoid freezes when my brain decides to take a different route than what I had originally planned. This works quite well for me, though it does take some time.

One fun way of practising was to use my trampoline to keep my brain better focused on the content. The small movement helped my brain to not to be as distracted as it would otherwise be.

We decided that I wouldn't write as I talked. I quite quickly noticed that I cannot do both at the same time without either speaking in a weird and slow way or making all sorts of spelling errors. I would use pre-written ingredients, and I really didn't have a plan for them before going to the shoot. That was new for me... usually I wouldn't be able to function with such a big unknown. But for some reason, I felt that well, what happens will happen.

I did have some time before my shoot because I went to the location a bit beforehand with my colleague, who shot their video before me. So while familiarising myself with what was going to happen, I did some quick planning of how I would use the cards.

Shooting the videos

Both my videos were shot on the same day (there were two shooting days). In the scene, there were only a few people: my colleague (who is one of my safe people), our marketing person and a few people from our partner. Well, our partners are experts in this, but still, I was a bit surprised by how kind and supportive they were. I had a really nice time at the video shoot.

I knew that we didn't have a lot of extra time to shoot the videos, so I aimed to get it right at the first try. I succeeded in that quite well! There were some small stumblings here and there, but instead of reshooting, I decided that they are ok. Mistakes do bring some authenticity and show me as a real person instead of a robot.

Seeing the results

Once the videos were edited, we got to see the results before they went live. I always enjoy watching my colleagues in videos; we have so many great performers and speakers at the company. And many of the topics were also really interesting to me, so it was really a win-win!

It's been weirdly ok to watch myself babble along about accessibility. Which is good because I'm going to start shooting videos on my own soon(ish). And because I will need to edit them myself, it's good if I can actually watch the content. But more on that later.

So stay tuned for A11ying with Sanna videos! Though don't expect them to appear in the couple of following months, I'm not that close yet. But in the meantime, you can go check the videos out from Exove's website in Finnish (at the time of writing, the first video is out). The blog post contains the video and a text version of it. You might also run into some on Exove's social media channels! At least I saw one of my videos just a few days ago.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:11:00 GMT

We got around to finally playing the game. After reading quite a few positive comments about it, my expectations were quite high.

The world is beautiful and intriguing. But knowing what surfaces you can jump on or not is in no way clear. Sometimes the same-looking rock can be climbed or jumped on, and sometimes not. This makes it quite hard to know where you can go.

The story keeps you wanting more. What I like about the story is that it's not filled with fake cheerfulness. The story will also surprise you, well, at least it surprised us.

The music is also really, really nice. There were more than a few songs I enjoyed more than usual. I think I will actually listen to the soundtrack separately. Some really good vocals in them.

Another thing I enjoy in the game is French. There are some sentences in French from time to time. I've studied French in school, and I still try to improve using language apps. So getting to hear some French was fun.

The characters feel genuine

The characters are very well written. They feel authentic.

The stories of the characters are different from one another. Some have had more hardship than others, and you get to learn all about it.

Gameplay-wise, it's also nice that all the characters have their own thing. They have a unique weapon type and their unique skills. Your party won't consist of all the characters, so you get to choose the playstyles you prefer.

I'm not fond of the UI

One thing I don't like is the UI, especially the character profiles. I can't really put my finger on it, but the UI just feels a bit clunky and complicated. Even though it really isn't that complicated. But somehow the button mappings feel off. Of course, you get used to it the longer you play.

Jumping and toggling running is not great

When you try to toggle between running and walking, you can't simply do it while standing still. Most of the time, it's not really an issue, but there are a few instances where it gets a bit annoying.

Jumping in general feels a bit unreliable, and it can get frustrating, especially when the platforms you are jumping on don't really behave logically either. It seems like you must have the camera pointing forward when you try to climb a ledge. Again, most of the time it's not an issue, but there are a few activities where you absolutely must be able to jump to small platforms. And sometimes you can't really decide if the character climbs or jumps... if you play the game, I'm pretty sure you'll know exactly the place I'm talking about.

I loved the Gestrals

I won't say too much about them, so I won't spoil anything. But I found them super cute.

But I didn't find the Gestral minigames very fun. At least one was way too long and punishing. The Gestrals in them were still cute, though. And the rewards were quite fun.

Humour

There is also quite a bit of humour in the game. As someone who copes with humour, I enjoyed it.

Some of the humour comes from the clothing options. I will spoil this a bit, but there is a costume set called "Baguette". And it's exactly what you might think. Red beret, striped shirt, black pants and you even have a baguette on your back. The only problem with that costume set is that we didn't want to change it to anything else.

Gameplay and thoughts on the game

The battle system allows you to actually plan how you will approach a battle. One annoying feature is that you need to learn by heart how specific monsters hit. There wasn't often a real way of figuring out visually what was going to happen; all had to be remembered.

One thing we missed constantly was a minimap. The lack of a minimap sometimes made it a bit difficult to navigate the world. The game will show you the main way with lanterns, so you can tell the difference between the optional ways. Well, that is if you can recognise which lanterns do that. We always didn't.

All in all, I would definitely recommend the game. Even though I didn't like every single thing, I think the game is excellent.

Saavuta 2025

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:08:05 GMT

The tenth Saavuta seminar took place on Tuesday. I got to attend the event once again live. It's just so nice to get to see like-minded people who all want to make the world more accessible. This is Finland's largest event, and I'm super happy I've been able to attend it several times now.

I was able to spend the day with friends, and I also met some new people.

The talks were inspiring and wonderful

Teemu Vidgrén talked to us about technology belonging to us all. And I couldn't agree more.

After Teemu, we had President Tarja Halonen on stage to talk about digitalisation needing humanity alongside it. This is the closest I've ever been to a president. The talk was both funny and motivating. I'm happy I got to experience it live.

Before lunch, we got to hear the latest from the supervisory authority by Sanna Sinisalo and Juha Suomalainen. Sanna told us about what is happening at Traficom, and then Juha shared some findings from their accessibility monitoring. One thing they mentioned was that the accessibility statements are not updated enough. They also reminded that the accessibility statements are for the end user.

After lunch, Outi Arbelius told us about services to support systematic accessibility work. I hope the services help to improve accessibility.

Then we heard from TACCU (Tampere Accessibility Unit) from Pauliina Baltzar and Maija Hirvonen. We heard about what the students have been up to, and we heard about research.

Then we heard about the city of Helsinki's project in systematic accessibility work from Nina Hiukkanen and Tero Pesonen. It's always so nice to hear about accessibility successes and see people who actually care and understand why accessibility is important.

After a quick coffee break, we had Niina Majaniemi talk to us about accessibility and empathy. We got to hear several examples and results that show that empathy helps improve business.

The last talk was from Kristiina Kujala, who talked to us about getting accessibility to the agenda of the company leadership. A human-centred approach should be on the agenda of companies to make accessibility a strategic competitive edge. Couldn't agree more. Kristiina also mentioned that the human-centred approach and accessibility also improve the well-being of the employees.

The event ended with a wonderful musical number.

The workshops were online this year

I was prepared to watch a workshop at the event, but the organisers recommended that we don't, but instead focus on networking. Fortunately, the workshops were recorded! So we get to watch them all once the recordings are available.

I loved to learn this and focused fully on the live event! And of course, I do love that we get the recordings of the talks as well because I definitely want to rewatch a couple of them.

Elli is the most lovely pain in the ass

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 17:13:06 GMT

Elli has been living with us for a bit over half a year now. She lives in her own room because she is still aggressive towards Lumia. Elli can have short visits in the apartment with strict monitoring. Lumia's safety comes first.

Elli is happy and relaxed in her room, the only thing she sometimes seems to want more is human company. Other than that she has everything she needs in the room and maybe a bit extra as well, it seems I like to buy things for the cats... Who can blame me, I've tried to buy cat toys that Lumia would like for years so we have a shelf full of all sorts of toys.

But back to Elli's character.

Elli loves to cuddle

Several times a day she will come sleep on top of us. Right now as I'm typing she is laying on top of my left hand with her haid on my shoulder. She just stopped purring and fell asleep.

You might think that not all times are good times for cuddles, but according to Elli, you are wrong. If she has decided that it's time for cuddles, she will keep coming back no matter how many times you put her on the floor.

So while it's lovely, sometimes her attention makes things a bit difficult.

Elli is very vocal

Elli is a very active communicator. Unfortunately, her voice is far from nice.

If she is alone in her room and wants company, she will meow at us. Many times it really sounds she is saying "Hewwo", so we are always joking that she is trying to yell "Hello! Hello!". Who knows, maybe she is.

It took me a while to be able to tell whether she is afraid or just seeking attention, but now I think I know most of the time what she is feeling.

Elli has a fixation on my prompter

I have a prompter on top of my screen. For some reason, she very often starts yelling into it. I think it has to do with seeing me in its mirror. But she also would want to step on the prompter. So, quite often you can hear me telling her not to go in or on the prompter.

Elli has zero manners

With all the love to my brother and his family, they taught Elli no manners. She has slowly started to understand the meaning of no. But only sometimes.

If you don't pet her when she wants you to, she will bite you (not hard though!). Or if she doesn't get her way, she bites. This is something we are trying to get her to stop, but considering she is now over 12 years old, it's not very likely she'll become a model citizen.

She doesn't understand that the mouse and the keyboard of the computer are off limits. Obviously, cats cannot understand why, but they can be taught to keep clear (for the most part anyway).

Elli is clearly still getting used to not always getting her way. It's sometimes tiring to try to teach these things to her, but then again that is the only way she can learn.

Elli is also super lovely

When she sleeps on you, she is the cutest. She will actually sometimes even snore, she will fall deep asleep. So there is clearly trust there.

She also has a habit of playing with my earrings while lying on top of me. That I usually have to stop at some point so she doesn't break the earrings... or if she bites my ear as collateral too many times.

When she lies on top of you, she might also take your hand between her front paws and hold it. Sometimes she might lick the fingers, sometimes maybe a little bitey bitey. That is just so adorable.

All in all, we do love Elli but oh boy she can be a real pain in the ass. I still hope she will stop being aggressive towards Lumia so we could have them both be free in the apartment. We shall see what happens. Until then she can live in her single room kingdom.

I was mesmerized by the stunning world of Hogwarts Legacy

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 07:51:50 GMT

Let me start by saying that I've always loved witches, witchcraft and the supernatural. So it's probably not a surprise I'm also into the world of Harry Potter. The game takes place way before Potter, which I think is a good thing. The developers don't run into people's expectations of the characters they already know and love.

I heard a lot of good things about the game before playing it, but oh my, the game is much better than what I expected. And I already had high expectations.

I played the game on PC with a controller. I would have gone with the PlayStation, but for some reason there is more content on the PC. Ridiculous, but what can you do. At least there is controller support on PC.

There are a lot of customization options

When you start, you get to create your own character. You get to customise their looks and even their voice.

All the gear in the game has its own unique look, and you can change the looks of the equipped items. Later in the game, you can even customise some spaces with magic.

While these kinds of options aren't necessary in a game, they can help you make the game more your own.

One of the more difficult things in the beginning was naming the character. You have to give your character their full name before you can start playing.

The world is beautiful

The visuals in the game look great. The graphics are nice in general but the scenery and the world is gorgeous.

Being able to go around Hogwarts is magical. All the familiar rooms and areas took me back to the movies and the books immediately.

There are also a lot of beasts around the world. And cats! And the best part about the cats is that you can pet them!

The story is almost addictive

The side quests brought a lot to the whole story. There were new characters that you otherwise wouldn't meet, as well as a lot of details and specifics. Each evening, I was looking forward to playing more.

You get to pick how you interact with people. You can be kind and helpful or something in the other end. I've yet to try out all the options to see if the people have different dialogues.

There are lots of different activities

There are a lot of activities. I won't list them here, so I won't spoil them. But I'd say there is probably a nice activity for everyone. There was one type of mini game I didn't know how to play, but luckily, my husband does, so he got to instruct how to get those done. It was fun to collaborate, even though the game is a single player game.

There are also things I don't like

I dislike one of the activities... flying. The controls are too loose. While it's nice to see the scenery better, trying to race is annoying. Not the worst experience, but definitely something both my husband and I found frustrating. Getting around was fine because I didn't have to do perfectly. A lot of trees and other scenery are often hit by my broom...

Flying with the controller is unpleasant, but with the mouse and keyboard, it was more difficult. It's really hard to go exactly where and how you want to. There are some activities while flying where you need to be able to hit targets. I often ended up going in multiple circles before hitting the targets.

There is replay value

I'm of course tempted to go full evil mode in the game. I didn't in the first playthrough, because being evil is just not my thing. But especially since there are achievements/trophies for all houses, there is at least one reason to play the game again. And why not see the changes a different personality might bring? I'm hoping the discussions are different if you behave like an ass.

If you love the world of Harry Potter, this is definitely a game for you.

Lumia's small behaviour changes

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 07:26:09 GMT

Lumia is now the "only" cat of the apartment. Elli hasn't gone anywhere but Elli is still living in her own space because she has been quite aggressive towards Lumia. Unless Elli becomes more neutral towards Lumia, she can remain in her own space because she has everything she needs there from climbing places to toys.

Lumia is also quite afraid of Elli and will quite often walk quickly if she needs to go near Elli's door. That is because Elli has tried to jump at her a couple of times. Sometimes it seems a bit playful, but other times it's clearly been more aggressive. So we'll continue taking things slow with their introduction. We've also come to accept that it might never happen. We hope it will, but we aren't necessarily expecting it.

But back to Lumia's behaviour changes.

Lumia is meowing more

She has become a bit more talkative. She has always meowed, but now she actually talks to us more often. And by us, I mean mostly my husband, because he is her human. If he doesn't respond to her enough or just not fast enough, she might ask me for help. During the summer, I've also started to receive more meows from her.

Before, she didn't really meow at us when we came home or while we were changing clothes, but now she does that quite often. I find it super cute that she is more talkative. If only I understood more often what she actually wants. :D

She is also just meowing more in general. When she is on the balcony, she tends to meow for a bit. We don't know if she's talking to us, herself or someone else.

Lumia is participating more

Lumia has always been participating in our activities but now she is maybe even more active. She has always been quite people-focused, which is of course now a bit easier to do, at least while Elli lives in her own space.

Lumia wants her morning and evening pets when we put on or take away the bedspread. She likes to participate in the process as well. I find it funny, but my husband sometimes seems to think it's a bit annoying. Mostly because Lumia helps by standing on the bedspread when you try to move it. :D I obviously think it's super cute.

When we sit around the kitchen table having our evening snack or if we are doing a jigsaw puzzle, Lumia now usually joins us. While she has joined us in the past as well, now she will roll on her back and purr happily while receiving pets. Before, she usually left when Osiris joined.

Lumia also more often comes to us if we ask her. Before she did that quite rarely, especially when I asked. It's been a really nice development. The best part (which is not new) is that when she comes to us, she always has her tail up.

Lumia mostly eats at night

Lumia's eating habits changed already earlier. While she does eat during the day, she is more active at night. Which means that she will meow at us until I get up and go to the kitchen with her.

While I would like to sleep better, I don't really mind all that much that I get up once or twice each night to give her some food. Especially during the summer when I don't sleep well anyways.

And as long as she keeps eating, I'm happy. She has always been a bit skinny, so it's good that she eats.

Lumia is taking her space

With these small changes and also how she has just always been, she is now taking her space in the apartment. If she wants something, you'll know. And you'd better give it to her. Whether she wants food, milk, treats or just that you take a blanket and let her come under it, you will be meowed at until you act the way she wants you to. She does still also scoff if we don't pay attention to her demands. She's the cutest little fluffball.

I sincerely hope that Lumia will be with us for many years still. But we've had 14 years of wonderful memories already and I just appreciate each day we get with her. I lived so long in fear that she won't turn 14 that now I just try to enjoy all the time with her that we get.

Words can't describe how much I love Lumia. She is just so wonderfully unique kitty.

Be vary of accessibility overlays

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 18:43:49 GMT

When a site owner hears that there is a magical solution that fixes accessibility problems without the need to do anything on the site, it might sound perfect. A bit too perfect, maybe? At least for now, yes.

Some of the tool providers claim that you will conform to all accessibility requirements if you use the tool. But that, unfortunately, is not the case. No automated tool can detect all accessibility issues, and those who claim to do so are lying. The automated tools are getting better and better at finding accessibility problems, and hopefully, in the future, with the help of artificial intelligence or even some other future tools, we might actually be able to find all problems or tailor the web experience to each user's needs. But we aren't there yet.

What is an accessibility overlay?

If you haven't heard of an accessibility overlay, it is basically a third-party solution that can be added on top of your website. The idea behind these overlays is to provide a solution that doesn't require anything from the site owner. So no code changes or anything like that.

The overlay provides tools that are supposed to help fix accessibility issues. So the thought behind them are good but unfortunately the end result is usually not great. Many experts have tested several of these overlay tools and found that they cause accessibility issues.

The overlays tend to have redundant features

In many of the overlays there are features that are already provided by the browser, the operating system or some other software. And sometimes these features in the overlays cause problems for the existing features. I don't know how common or rare this type of thing is, but it's been mentioned in many places.

The benefit of using these existing tools is that they then apply to everything the user does. An overlay on a website is limited to only that website. So the user has to add the settings for all the sites separately if they want to use the provided overlays.

Some overlays probably have one or more beneficial features as well. I don't believe they are all bad. And I'm not trying to say the people behind the tools are necessarily bad either.

Potential user privacy issues

Some of the tools collect information about assistive technology use without people opting in. Use of any assistive technologies is thing many people don't necessarily want to disclose. So any such feature is a problem for user privacy. Disabilities can still be stigmatising, and people shouldn't be forced to share them.

I have also heard that some tools might add settings to user's cookies or similar and then add the same settings on all sites that use that tool. But with this the problem again seems to be not asking the user if they want this or not. While offering this type of a feature sounds good, especially for the user, the user always needs to be able to consent to the feature.

The overlays aren't a magical solution

I don't want to lump all the overlay services together or claim they are all terrible. But I do want you to be careful about these services.

If you are planning to get an overlay tool, ensure it doesn't cause any new accessibility issues. Ask questions and accessibility statement for the product before you spend your money on it. And remember that the tool will not make everything perfect, nor will it make you conform to the legal accessibility requirements. Currently, the best way to solve issues is still to remedy the issues on the website itself.

Little Kitty, Big City - a cat lover's dream

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 17:15:57 GMT

I finally got around to playing the game. And it was so worth it! And the game is very different from Stray, this is a much more casual and lighthearted game. Though I do recommend you play both the games if you haven't so far.

In Little Kitty, Big City you get to play as a cat and navigate through the neighborhood. The main goal of the game is fairly straightforward, find your way back home. There are some side quests you can do and I definitely recommend playing the whole game including all the side quests. I don't want to spoil any details of the game so I won't tell you more about the setup.

And don't worry, (and the game will tell you this before the beginning), the cat is not harmed in any way in the game. So even if you fall (or jump, if you want to) from a tall building, the cat is not injured. But I do warn that you might feel the fall in your stomach! At least I did!

Visuals of the game are super cute

The images for this post are my screenshots from the game. I never take screenshots (unless by accident), but this time there was a quest for them! It was actually quite fun coming up with nice places or settings for pictures.

The game is soon getting an update, after which you can also customise your cat, among other things. That will be a nice addition, though I feel the game is really nice as is.

In the game, you can also collect hats for the cat to wear. Though the hats were cute, I didn't want to wear them outside of quests. I did try most of the hats on, though, because I was curious to see them.

You get to do cat things

It wouldn't be a cat game if you couldn't do some "cat things". One activity you can do is drop things, usually some kind of plant pots. And another is tripping humans. Tripping humans was a lot trickier than expected based on my experience with my cats. :) There were also several other fun activities but I don't want to spoil them here.

You can also meow with a cute voice or do some emotes like napping. The emotes felt a bit weird for me to use; I never remembered how they were supposed to be done. But meowing on the other hand... super fun while going around.

Running around really felt like zoomies, and it was also called that in the game. They clearly have seen how cats behave during zoomies. The cat had very realistic cat movements in general.

Thoughts about gameplay

The game was quite casual, which was nice. I felt the gameplay supported the cute visuals really well. The cat is just adorable in its movements. The casual gameplay and cute visuals both made the experience more relaxing for me.

You get to meet many animals, all of whom have their own stories. I found myself chuckling or laughing several times. The content is very well written, and the story is fun. In the thumbnail picture for this post is Tanuki the raccoon, whom I really enjoyed. To be honest, I don't think there was any animal story I didn't enjoy.

When you finally reach the end, you get to name your cat. And while the cat looks nothing like him, we named the cat Osiris. It just felt right.

Remembering Osiris

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 17:38:09 GMT

My world was shattered on June 15 when, very early in the morning, Osiris passed away very suddenly. We rushed to the vet, but there was nothing that could be done. We lost him.

The only positive thing is that it happened very fast. An hour before whatever happened to him, he was perfectly fine and purring, being himself. So he didn't suffer long.

Osiris was the kindest cat. He took part in everything that was going on, unless he was deep asleep. There have been a lot of activities that I've had to learn to do alone.

The apartment is too quiet. I really miss Osiris bossing us around and just talking with us. Most days, he slept between my legs while we were watching TV or playing. I miss the snoring.

Lumia doesn't seem to be sad, which is relieving. At least she eats (as well as she normally does). She is a bit more active at the moment with us, which is comforting.

One thing I definitely miss the most is our morning cuddle time after breakfast. He'd usually wait until I finished eating, and then I would put my arms in a circle, and he could come there. I miss the cuddles in general. Osiris loved to cuddle, as did I.

We got his urn this week. Yet another reminder that Osiris really is gone. We have almost 14 years of wonderful memories with him. I just wish we got more.

I spoke at a live event!

Sat, 24 May 2025 11:34:32 GMT

I've been a speaker in a couple of webinars, but before this, I had never spoken really in front of people at an event. Internal company events, yes, but those are different scale.

Luckily, I got to speak with a close friend and colleague, who always makes me feel really safe. We've also hosted a webinar together before, and we work closely together at Exove, especially in accessibility.

How did it go?

Things are never perfect, but I think we did fairly well. We also got really nice and positive feedback from people. People were also happy to see accessibility as a topic, and we even got some requests for new talks.

Feelings before and after

I was weirdly calm until about 30 minutes before the talk. Don't know why, really. But after that, I got quite nervous, though it was still a bit surprising that I wasn't in a complete panic.

Afterwards, I felt really happy that we decided to talk at the event, that we got in and that we actually did it.

The event itself

The event was DrupalCamp, where there were a lot of talks on different topics throughout the day. Very inspiring, there were new and exciting things about Drupal as well as many other nice topics about, for example, usability and green ICT. The event itself was great, as always. This time we were in Espoo instead of Helsinki, which was an interesting change of pace. Luckily, I wasn't alone, so I didn't have to worry so much about getting to the venue.

It was also nice to meet new and old friends and colleagues and have great discussions at the event and the afterparty.

Can't wait for next year again, or at least I really, really hope we get to have yet another DrupalCamp in Finland.

WebAIM's Million 2025 is out!

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 16:29:38 GMT

Once again we get the chance to dig into some accessibility data.

There is no change in the most common errors

Once again the top errors remain the same:

Low contrast text
Missing alternative text
Missing form labels
Empty links
Empty buttons
Missing document language

The error percentage did go down a bit again this year, which is good. But missing alternative text, empty links and empty buttons are all a bit higher than last year.

Home pages are getting more complicated

They did notice that the complexity of the home pages has gone up again, and this likely explains some of the errors as well.

I know a lot of home pages have all sorts of content listings. But these elements aren't all that complex so I'm at least hoping that the errors aren't in the listings. Unless, of course, the listings use card elements where the images lack alternative text (as well as the empty alt tag) and are lacking in contrast. There probably are some sites that have these problems, but it cannot be all of them.

The use of regions has increased

At least one region was now on 80 % of the home pages, which is about a 4 % increase. And the use of the search landmark also increased slightly. This reminds me, I need to check my clients' sites for the use of the landmark!

ARIA use has increased a lot again

The graph that shows how many ARIA attributes there are per home page is a bit alarming. While many functionalities require ARIA, there are a lot that really don't. It would be interesting to me to hear if there is some data on the type of ARIA used and how much of it could be left out nowadays.

Once again I can only recommend avoiding any unnecessary ARIA and always checking the ARIA spec before adding any ARIA. And last but not least, always test all ARIA with at least one screen reader.

Ambiguous link text increased

Unfortunately, we saw an increase in meaningless link texts, such as "click here", "more" and "continue". Why are we still adding so many of these? I know that excellent link texts aren't always easy but these can be avoided.

Skip links are still problematic

The number of skip links on home pages increased slightly, but we are still under 15 %.

One out of ten skip links are broken in some way.

The use of tables is going down

One nice thing to read was that the use of tables is not as common this year. Well, this year there were almost 973 000 tables compared to 1 130 000... so there are still a lot of tables. Out of these, less than 20% had valid data table markup.

I would be curious to learn how many of these actually have tabular data in them. In my experience, a lot of people still use tables to visually place content.

Use accessibility tools to catch these errors

The sad thing about these errors is that they can easily be caught with automation. Well, even the Million uses an automated tool (WAVE) to check for these.

There are a lot of free and paid tools available, there really is no excuse to not use a tool to find the errors.

If you have a site that has over 100 pages, I do think that you really cannot do proper quality monitoring without a fully automated tool.

Starting 2025 live events with IAAP Nordic hybrid event

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 18:38:33 GMT

IAAP Nordic organised two events here in Finland. That in itself was super cool! But even better was that Tietoevry was hosting the event at their headquarters which meant that the event took place in Espoo (which is where I live). The first day was a member-only workshop and the second day was a hybrid event that was open to everyone. We decided to attend the event live with my colleague because the event was close to us.

First I felt a little sting, that dang I couldn't participate in the workshop because I'm not still a member. But then I saw the post that said that they open the event for others as well and everyone was able to apply for a spot. I jumped on it immediately and got my spot. Luckily my colleague also got hers.

The workshop

First, we got to know each other a bit and we got an introduction to what we were actually going to do. There were accessibility experts from many countries, which was superb.

The workshops have already been happening in other countries as well, but the idea with them is to take a look at EN 301 549 requirements that aren't a part of WCAG. I have been meaning to dig properly into the EN 301 549 standard and its contents so this was a good introduction to that as well. The idea with the workshops is to ensure we all know what the requirements are, what they mean and how we should test for them. We also discussed if they were particularly important for specific user groups. Hopefully, we'll see some materials after all the workshops are done, but they are at least doing webinars after each workshop where they will go through the workshop content. So if you are interested in learning more about these, take a look at the webinars. The next webinar is on February 13.

We took a look at three requirements: 5.3 Biometrics, 5.9 Simultaneous user actions and 7.1.2 Captioning synchronization. We were split into three smaller groups and each group went deeper into one requirement. I got the group which I originally thought was easy - Biometrics. But after we were discussing for probably an hour about what actually controlling ICT with biometrics means, I realised that it really wasn't all that easy. After the discussions, the facilitators summarised all the discussions and there was a list of things to ask about the meaning from the council as well as suggestions for notes and other improvements.

After the workshop, there was time for networking. I was originally planning to leave soon after the workshop itself, but then we got to talking with some great people about pets, accessibility and all sorts of things Nordic, and I ended up leaving at the end of the networking time. Some still went to eat but I decided that I needed to go home.

The hybrid event

I really love the atmosphere in the accessibility events. We are there to learn and cheer each other on. We come up with ideas, share the good and the bad about accessibility work, and increase the size of our accessibility expert network.

The day was filled with great and interesting topics and I don't know how, but somehow it's been possible that I'm even more excited about accessibility work than I was before the event.

We heard a couple of user stories, both of which were amazing. Eevis Panula also showed accessibility testing on Android. And then there were great panel discussions. All in all a fantastic event with excellent topics.

I must admit that I was very tired after two social days but it was all very much worth it. I'll just need to recharge my batteries and then get to work with my plans in accessibility!

Becoming more active in accessibility

I also made the decision to finally try to become a member of IAAP. I just got permission to use my personal budget at work (which is for training, equipment and such things) for the membership and I must say I'm super hyped!

It was a bit of a bummer that I had trouble paying for the membership with my credit card due to a not-so-descriptive error message on the site. But since they do offer the possibility of a bill, I then just went with that instead. I got the email quite quickly and the payment was processed very fast. And now I'm officially a member.

I have been meaning to become more active with accessibility in the communities as well. I've been a member of the Nordic Accessibility Community Group but I haven't attended any of the meetings so far. I've always been either busy or just chickened out. But now I'm determined to start taking part in these because discussions with other experts are just so valuable.

I have all sorts of plans in my head for sharing my knowledge in my personal projects as well, but those probably will take some time to come to reality.

I also try to be kind to myself and not burn myself out by doing too much all at once. It's sometimes just hard not to go full speed ahead when you're super excited about things.

Trying again with Elli

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:57:04 GMT

Recently, we heard that the family that took Elli and Nappi in after our family experiment started implying that they didn't want Elli anymore. Unfortunately, Nappi is no longer with us, but Elli is still a healthy senior. We discussed a lot of options and it started to look like Elli might be better off staying with us, so we decided to give it one more go.

Starting slow

Elli had a long, all-day journey to come to us. We put her in a room alone so that she could eat and get some rest. We did visit to give her pets and treats but other than that she was getting to take her time to investigate the room. She was very quiet and happy in the room until around 4 AM the next morning. Then she started making a bit of noise indicating that she was now done staying in the room and would like to see what was happening on the other side of the door. In the morning we started altering who stays in the "solo" room and who gets to roam around the other rooms.

No direct contact in the beginning

We know that all three cats hate that doors are closed. Elli and Osiris are much more vocal about it and both try to open the door. But we decided that we'll just have them protest but the door stays closed until they seem more at ease with each other's scent. Since scent is what cats mostly go by, it's important to give them a bit of time to get used to each other again.

We'll try to do some scent transfers and give them time to sniff things. It's starting to look like the scents aren't making them nervous anymore, at least not as much as in the beginning.

Remote working helps a lot

It is much easier to keep the cats ok with closed doors when we are both at home.

Unfortunately, our schedules mean that most of the work week it's just me working remotely. The biggest thing is that I need to figure out a good way to move stuff in and out of the room without letting the cat escape. If I can do that, then it becomes a bit easier to give attention to all cats during the workday.

Next steps

We don't have any idea how long it takes for the cats to be ready for the next steps, but we'll see how they act. We have to take things as slow as necessary, though I must admit that sometimes I'd just really like to go to the bathroom without a cat hassle.

Visual contact through a barrier

The next step after this is to allow them to see each other for a bit. We have a cage that blocks the width of the room's door, which can be used to control how much and how long they can see each other. The cage is mostly covered by a sheet.

We've now allowed Osiris and Elli to see each other very briefly a couple of times. It's good we aren't rushing things because they are clearly still reserved. Elli maybe even a bit more than Osiris, which was a surprise. However, that might partially be due to Osiris being very (and I truly mean very) motivated by food. So we got him to already eat food and treats quite close to the cage without him becoming scared or agitated. Elli wouldn't eat and she isn't that into treats so she got mostly pets instead. We'll continue with the brief eye contact possibilities for now and will increase the time slowly.

We've decided to start this process with Elli and Osiris because Lumia has her own schedule for things. It will likely be better if Elli is as ok as possible with Osiris before we introduce her to Lumia.

Being in the same space without barriers

If we ever get to the point of the cats being relaxed while seeing each other through the cage, then the next step would be to remove the cage and allow them to have quick interactions in the same room.

Especially because Osiris gets very easily scared, we can't rush to this phase. If Osiris is scared, he will make a lot of noise and that will then start scaring Lumia. And we don't want that to ensure Lumia keeps acting normally.

The biggest challenges

This will not be an easy project. Seniors aren't that easily accepting new family members. But we will try because we want to give Elli a chance to live her full life.

The challenge of space

A big challenge is having to have someone in one room only. While the room isn't that small and it does have everything a cat needs, it's still a relatively small space. And unfortunately, our apartment is not big enough that we would have had a completely extra room for Elli. So Lumia and Osiris did lose some of their usual sleeping places. They do have a lot of places in the other rooms to sleep, but it is something they now lost for a bit. Not optimal, but we really couldn't have Elli stay in our small bathroom either.

It would be best to have a bit bigger space for the isolation but unfortunately, that would likely be very difficult to organise (from both convenience and price perspectives). So we'll try with a single room first and see how it goes. If this is starting to look like a year-long project, then I assume we need to do something different. For now, we'll take it one day at a time.

Elli's challenges

Elli is a quite confident cat. She was very quickly fine with the room and the apartment. She also likes us humans. But the confidence is a bit of a challenge when you have a setup like this. If she were a bit less confident, she might not be trying to come out of the room all the time.

She lived with Nappi for over 10 years. Now she's been without a companion for a year or so. So it's been a while since she's been sharing anything. Can't really say how she feels about sharing her space with others again.

Elli's cat skills are a bit lacking when it comes to her tail. Elli's tail communicates being angry but in reality, she is very content. She also hisses as a protest instead of only as a warning. Which confuses the other cats.

Elli is also very demanding when it comes to attention. It isn't that much of a challenge in itself but Osiris is very much similar. We'll see if that becomes an issue.

Osiris' challenges

Osiris gets scared very easily. And when he is scared, he is very vocal about it. And if he is scared, he will also easily lash out at Lumia, which is obviously not a good thing.

Osiris is also very much my cat. He loves all humans but I'm his main human. Time will tell if he allows me to share my love with Elli as well. So far he hasn't paid attention to Elli's scent on me, so hopefully he can share.

Lumia's challenges

Lumia doesn't have proper cat skills. She stares, which is a threat in the cat world. But in her world, she is only watching - and usually quite curiously. But that is scary to cats who don't know how Lumia is.

Lumia doesn't also really understand hissing. She sometimes seems to get a bit confused if someone hisses at her. It might have something to do with the fact that she occasionally hisses at her human and immediately after it goes to purr and love the human. We don't really understand what she means by that but we have been trying to teach her that if she hisses, we go away from her. But I don't think she's understood that.

Lumia is also already not the best eater. She has her own schedule and sometimes she eats very little. So monitoring her eating habits can be challenging.

Lumia is also sleeping quite a lot and isn't really that interested in other cats. She just likes us humans. So getting her to get to know Elli on both their terms might be a challenge of its own. She has been curious about the door and Elli making noise in the room, so let's see if she is willing to meet Elli by the cage at some point. The problem with Lumia is that she isn't always motivated by anything. She isn't that fond of pets and she doesn't always want treats. So getting her distracted if things don't go well can be tricky.

Lumia also does get scared quite easily, though she is not vocal about it, she will just run away. She is probably the safest cat out of these three. She never bites Osiris and she is just a very mellow little fluffball. Unless we are at the vet, then it is a different story.

Osiris getting terrified while Lumia was away

There was one unfortunate accident on Thursday when Osiris and Elli were both by the door at the same time. Osiris was pushing his paw to the other side because he wanted to get out of the room. Elli saw the paw, probably got curious and jumped to play. But she used a bit too much force for the jump and collided with the door. This made a noise and freaked Osiris completely out. He was hissing and growling for several minutes because he was so scared. Osiris' initial reaction did scare Elli a bit. But Elli fortunately seemed to cool down very quickly.

It didn't help that Lumia was at the dentist at the time of the event and she came back smelling and acting weird. We isolated Lumia for as long as we could, and since Osiris was really scared of Lumia when he saw her, we isolated all three from each other for over a day. Now Osiris seems to be finally normal towards Lumia. I must admit that this was a rather tough four days trying to get them back to normal.

The progress so far

Elli came to us on Tuesday evening. So she's been here less than a week. Considering that, I do think we've made good progress.

Whether or not we will succeed in getting the cats to live happily (or happily enough, it's unlikely they'll become great friends this late in life) with each other, we still don't know. But we are committed to trying. While this phase is quite tiring and sometimes even frustrating to us humans, we'll deal with it. Because if we get this to work, we'll have one more little fluffball in our home.

Paid tools to help monitor accessibility

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 10:15:50 GMT

I recently wrote about free tools to help monitor accessibility. It's also good to be aware of the paid options that are available. The paid options usually have more features than the free ones. And often there is some level of customer support if you pay for a tool. Both are a great thing if you are trying to ensure your service is accessible.

I'm not claiming I know all the tools available, because I really don't. But these are some of the tools I've seen and used myself. The vendors and the tools are different, so I do recommend that you ask for demos of the tools to see which would best suit your needs.

Tools that can scan the whole site

There are a lot of paid tools available. Some are better than others.

All the tools provide results together with information about the problem as well as how it can be fixed. So from that perspective, they have the same features. The main differences come with the user interfaces as well as how the information is formatted.

I've done quite a lot of research lately into the tools that are available because I'm trying to get a good toolkit collected for my clients. These are the tools I know about the most.

Deque has a lot of Axe tools

Deque has tools to monitor accessibility for both developers and content editors alike. Pricing of the tools is unknown because they don't release that information. My guess is they aren't cheap, but I do know that their tools are very good.

I would imagine their Axe Monitor is a great tool for accessibility monitoring. But because I work at an agency, I haven't seen the software in action. And why does it matter that I work at an agency, you might ask? Because agencies are competing in the same space as they are. So they sell the Monitor product directly to owners of services and not to agencies. I haven't even asked about their pricing from my own perspective, because I don't expect such a tool to be affordable enough for hobby use.

Webwarden

Webwarden is one of the newest tools on the market here in Finland. There are a lot of great features from accessibility to HTML and other quality monitoring. The tool has a lot of potential, and they have a lot of plans to bring in many more features.

The user interface is easy to understand and navigate. They have clearly focused on making the interface easy to use regardless of role.

Their pricing is also more affordable, which is a nice plus for someone like me who needs the tool for hobby project monitoring.

This is the tool I recently started using myself. I think this tool might force the other players in the market to react. And that is also a good thing.

Eficode Accessibility Keeper

Eficode is a quite well-known company here in Finland. They do a lot of things on many fronts, including accessibility.

The user interface is clean and understandable. Though it does provide much fewer features than some other tools, it might make the tool by default a bit easier to use. But the user interface is still very well designed from a cognitive accessibility perspective, there is no denying that.

I have tested this tool myself and the results are very good. I and the rest of the testing group from Exove enjoyed using the tool a lot.

Eficode Accessibility Keeper focuses on accessibility, so it doesn't have as many features as some of the other tools. And they have themselves said that for people looking for all those other features as well, another tool might be a better fit for you. But if you are looking for a tool to specifically monitor accessibility, Accessibility Keeper is a quality option.

Eficode does also provide other accessibility services, such as consulting and training. If you are looking for a single partner for all accessibility-related matters, Eficore might be an option for you.

QAutoEqual

A tool that I most recently learned about is QAutoEqual. The tool is developed by QAutomate.

The tool uses QualWeb as its engine, as does Salvia which was mentioned in the earlier blog post. There are several packages for the tool, the best one for you depends on your needs.

I've been using the trial version of the tool and the tool does bring quality results.

One great feature this tool brings is an accessibility statement. No other tool has this feature yet, and this is very useful for someone who doesn't have experience creating and updating an accessibility statement.

If you are looking for a single partner for all accessibility-related matters, Q-Factory might be an option for you. They offer a lot of quality control and accessibility services. While I haven't used their services myself, I do know some of their public speakers and they do know their stuff.

Siteimprove

Last but not least, Siteimprove. Siteimprove is one of the most known tools available. Their tool offers other qualities on top of accessibility monitoring such as SEO and quality assurance. Far from cheap, but it does have good quality results and a lot of different features.

Siteimprove just recently made an acquisition (https://www.siteimprove.com/press/marketmuse) that will improve their SEO features, among others. To be honest, these possibilities sound really interesting and I can't wait to hear more about the features and benefits.

What separates Siteimprove from other players in the market is that it also provides analytics. If you want one tool to provide all the things, Siteimprove might be the one for you.

Tools to check single pages

There are also some tools that allow you to scan single pages.

Deque Axe DevTools

If you want to take your browser plugin to the next level, you can buy the Axe DevTools browser plugin. It has many more features than the free version. If you can afford it, this is a quality tool. I was really impressed when I saw a demo of their guided tests, which is one of the features available in the paid version.

The user interface is pretty much identical with the free version so it's a great UI. There are just some extra features there to improve the accessibility testing.

The browser extension is available on Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Siteimprove

Siteimprove also has an Accessibility Checker extension that is available for Chrome, Opera, Edge and Firefox. I've used this plugin and I like it quite a bit.

Siteimprove also has a Browser extension that allows you to check your DCI score. This one is available for Chrome and Firefox.

Tools that can be used in a CMS

Well, this is where Siteimprove seems to be ahead of its competitors, at least for now. This is not really that surprising because they've been on the market longer and have more time to develop supporting tools.

Siteimprove has CMS plugins for at least WordPress and Drupal and many other integrations. At the moment the Drupal module doesn't offer Drupal 11 support, so if you are already running the newest Drupal, you'll have to wait for support.

I've seen the Drupal module in action and to me, it felt quite easy and intuitive to use. But then again I'm maybe a bit of a Siteimprove power user so I do know my way around the tool really well. So I might be a bit biased as well.

My thoughts on the tools

I think the more different tools there are, the easier it is for people to find the right tool for them. We all have our preferences and it's ok to like a different tool than other people do. And paid tools do have their place. They can also be used together with accessibility monitoring services if you want to outsource some of the work to another person or a company.

You can read more about these tools on my accessibility website or of course on the websites of the tools themselves.

I can't wait to see what happens in the tooling space in the future. I'm glad I get to see how the tools develop.

Changes in the Finnish Supervisory Authority

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 10:24:12 GMT

At the moment there are two Supervisory Authorities in Finland: digital accessibility is monitored by the Regional State Administrative Agency and physical accessibility by Traficom.

The European Accessibility Act brought in new requirements for both digital accessibility and physical accessibility. This brought in a discussion about centralising the supervisory duties.

Starting 1.1.2025, Traficom will be taking care of all supervisory duties. The Supervisory Authority personnel from AVI will move to Traficom so there will be many familiar faces.

Having all accessibility supervision under one roof will make things much easier for the end users. We no longer need to contact multiple authorities but can instead reach out to a single point of contact.

Update your accessibility statement with the new contact details

Because the Supervisory Authority will be different, also the contact details will be different.

They don't know yet what the details will be, so follow their site Saavutettavuusvaatimukset for the updates. They did mention that very likely there will be a redirect from the old email to a new one, so people's feedback will not be lost. But if you want to look better than many people/companies, be sure to update the information as soon as it's available. You can add the change date and the new contact information together with the current information, you don't have to be working on your day off to add the information.

Update your accessibility statement at least once a year

Finally, I have black on white about the accessibility statement requirements. The Supervisory Authority said in the Saavuta 2024 event that the accessibility statement should be checked and updated at least once a year. This also means that you should be auditing the site for accessibility.

The statement should optimally be updated every time a change is made on the site - it can be a fix or it can be a newly discovered issue. But now it has been officially said that it must be done at least once a year.

Saavuta 2024 event took place today

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 19:05:00 GMT

I attended the Saavuta seminar today live in Iiris Centre. I had taken part of the seminars before online. This was my first time live and I got to also participate in a workshop. What a fun experience! There is just something so warm about the accessibility community that it makes it so much easier to attend the events.

The event was superb this year. The topics were great as well as the speakers. I also got to spend the day with two friends, one current colleague and one former one, which made the day even better. And I got to meet a few new faces at well!

Session 1: Older people in the accessibility mire

The day started with Vappu Taipale talking about older people and accessibility. The talk was excellent as a whole but there were a couple of things that stayed with me.

Vappu mentioned that things are designed for children and older people - but neither group gets asked about them. Someone just comes to them with a readymade product and asks if they are able to use it. Not the way things should go, right?

I freely translated a quote from her into English. In Finnish it is: "Saavutettavuus on syvintä inhimillisyyttä". What a wonderful sentence.

Accessibility is the ultimate humanity.

Accessibility is about shared joy, knowledge, skill and culture. I couldn't agree more.

Session 2: Strategic choice - reactive or proactive accessibility work

The second talk was by Heli Jeskanen, who is the digital accessibility lead at OP Financial Group. Yet another very inspiring talk. A lot of pointers I can use in my work. Here are some of them.

A few pointers about the benefits of accessibility from the perspective of costs.

Clearer code is cheaper.
Proactivity is cheaper than fixing.
Search engine visibility improves.
A wider customer base.

If accessibility skills are not at an adequate level, new technical debt is constantly being created, at high cost.

Accessibility testing should be a part of the development process and not an afterthought after release. This was highlighted in a few example graphs. The "Don't do it like this" example was pretty much the model I've seen a lot of companies use. There is still much work to be done, that's for sure!

Ensuring accessibility is a team effort. Solutions are usually best found through teamwork.

I wholeheartedly agree with both these sentences. I think teamwork also brings in a bit of safety and the possibility of sparring with someone.

And then we saw four points about what it takes to succeed:

Management commitment and strong support.
Metrics and monitoring.
The commitment of front-line staff to ensure competence.
Active leadership of change.

Indeed. We are all in this together.

Session 3: Proactive accessibility in the work of the supervisory authority

Next, we had Juha Suomalainen and Erik Lenkkeri talk about the work of the supervisory authority.

Juha mentioned the accessibility specialist network that I'm also a part of as one way the supervisory authority takes part in the community.

There are a lot of benefits to proactive accessibility work. They shared four:

Service providers are more aware of their responsibilities.
Service users are more aware of their rights.
Reaching a wider audience.
More accessible services for all.

They also mentioned that the supervisory authority will be centralised under Traficom at the start of next year. So both digital and real-world accessibility will then be monitored by Traficom. Luckily the current AVI accessibility personnel will move under Traficom so we still get to ask our questions from the same familiar faces.

Another thing they reminded us about is that from 1.1.2025 onwards our accessibility statements should have the new contact information for the accessibility feedback. This is an important thing to check. Also they did tell us that the accessibility statement contents should be checked at least once a year. I took a screenshot of the slide so now I have it in black and white that the statements should be monitored at least yearly. This is something I constantly get challenged about so it's nice to have some backup.

Workshops

There were several workshops live at the event after lunch. I took part in the Pimé Café event where we got taken to a pitch-black room for an interesting session about AI. I found myself getting slightly anxious even before going in but then when I had to try to find my way in the darkness, I got really scared. I was so afraid of bumping into someone I didn't know (if it were a friend, then it would be much less scary) and causing problems that I moved slowly. So slowly, that the hosts were guiding me maybe a bit more than others even. In the end, I found my seat with the guidance of the host and having them walk me felt much safer.

Then it probably took me over a minute to understand the chair - I had no idea where I was supposed to sit. But after using my hands to try to figure the shape out, I was able to sit down and focus on the workshop.

The examples shown to us were really good. And the experience was really powerful. Though I could have lived without the pain in my eyes after exiting the darkness after almost an hour. But if you are ever near the Iiris centre and have the possibility to go to the Pimé Café, I can't recommend it enough!

After the workshops, we got to hear more talks.

Session 4: Could accessibility feedback be more effective?

Essi Suominen from Cludo and Tero Pesonen from Q-Factory dove into the topic of accessibility feedback and how hard it is to both give it and get it.

We can't force to provide the "correct" type of feedback. Should the user be able to differentiate usability and accessibility feedback from one another? How to get users to give feedback?

The topic of the accessibility statement was also quite naturally part of this discussion. Quite often the accessibility statements are very WCAG criteria-focused. The accessibility statement is a tool for the user (and not e.g. the supervisory authority). Making the accessibility statements easier to understand would help us all.

Session 5: A panel discussion about accessibility and AI

The event ended with a panel discussion about the benefits and use cases of AI. We had Aapo Latvala, Tero Avellan and Ville Lamminen sharing their insights on the topics.

There were a lot of interesting topics, one of which was how we could make sure AI would be available to the users who would really benefit from it. Maybe in the future there could be some kind of AI support, like we now have IT support. AI cannot be forced on people.

Some people might have concerns when it comes to AI. The internet is not a very safe place - there are constant threats and news about hackers and scammers. No wonder some people are worried.

One interesting point was brought up that have we actually done enough to instruct and guide people with new devices and technology usage? The same can be said for AI.

I again translated one quote:

If anything is a matter of opinion, it's the alt text.
Ville Lamminen

The discussion was about whether AI could be used to create alternative texts for images. The consensus was yes and a comment was thrown that it's not like the alt texts are something people have been happy with so far either. The comment was said jokingly but it is also true. The alt texts are so subjective. What I think would be a good alt text to describe an image might be the opposite for you. No matter whether or not we can see the image or not. People are very different in their preferences.

Afterthoughts

I feel super inspired. Each of the talks had something for me. I still have to (well, I don't have to but I do want to) watch the online talks when they get published.

According to the organisers, there were 900 people attending the event either live or remote. While that is a really good amount of people, I sometimes wonder why there aren't more people attending online. The events always have interesting and important topics that should be something we'd all want to learn about.

I can't wait for the event again next year - this time it will be the tenth event so I really hope it will happen. And I hope I can attend it live again.

Relaxing farming in Stardew Valley

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 13:04:00 GMT

One of my favourite games of all time has to be Stardew Valley. The game started as a solo developer project by ConcernedApe, which makes the game even more impressive. The game was first released in 2016, after which we have received many updates.

Stardew Valley is a game where you inherit your grandfather's farm. I try to keep the details to a minimum so I won't spoil too many parts of the game. You can choose a farm between many options to support your preferred playstyle.

The game was only solo-player in the beginning but later on, a co-op mode was added to the game. I've yet to try the co-op mode out but I've been happily playing the game solo.

In the past we played Harvest Moon with my brother and we loved it. So it probably isn't all that surprising that I love a similar type of game.

Farm life

At the beginning of the game you get to choose either a cat or a dog for your farm and you can name it. If you keep petting your pet, they will occasionally give you gifts, which is quite a fun little perk. Not that I'd need that to keep petting my cat. Doesn't probably surprise anyone that I did choose a cat as my pet.

As part of your farm life, you can have barn animals and coop animals. I won't add spoilers about what animals you can have. Let me just say that there are several, some of which are more exotic than others. Petting your farm animals will increase the quality of the products they produce.

There are four seasons in the game, all of which have seasonal crops to farm. You can also grow trees that grow fruits.

There are also many more activities for you to do. If you roam around the town, you can also find products to forage. There are monster-filled mines where you can mine for ores and other materials. You can also cook food and spend time fishing.

There are so many activities to do that you can spend hours in the game without getting bored with it. There are more activities to do than what you can achieve in one game day.

Townspeople post quests for you to complete, which is one way to increase friendship with them. Other ways include gifts and just talking to them.

Friendships and family

There are several single NPCs in the game. You can get married to one after you've become good friends. The person you marry will join you on your farm and occasionally help you.

You can have two children in the game, either biological or adopted. The children will grow up to be toddlers but not older than that.

There are a lot of other townspeople you can become friends with.

The game received a lot of new features in a version 1.6 update

This version is available for everyone who owns the game. This is amazing. I would have happily bought this as an expansion for the game.

If you've played the game before the 1.6 update, I do recommend checking out all the new things in the game!

Merchandise

While the game has a great Wiki, I got bored switching between the game and my browser. I had earlier seen how nice the guidebook looks and I decided to get one for myself. I love using it. There is just something about having an actual book in my hands.

I also have two colouring books with a Stardew Valley theme. I like colouring so I thought why not relax with a relaxing colouring theme.

A new game coming from ConcernedApe

The developer is currently working on a new game. Based on my experiences with Stardew Valley, I'll definitely be checking out the new game as well once it comes out.

If you haven't tried Stardew Valley out before, I can't recommend it enough. If you are looking for a fun and relaxing game, this one might be for you!

Osiris was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and diabetes

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 06:58:56 GMT

Earlier this year Osiris was first diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. While his medication dose was tested, he also started showing symptoms of diabetes. Unfortunately getting both of these at the same time did cause him to lose quite a bit of muscle. But now we seem to have found the correct dosages and he has started to climb up the climbing wall again.

Symptoms

There weren't really that many symptoms for hyperthyroidism because it was caught quite early. We have yearly health checks for the cats so that any changes can be caught before they become an issue.

The clearest diabetes symptoms for Osiris were the increase in water drinking. For our previous cat, Vilma, the biggest symptom was an increase in urine infections. It did take us a while to register this change in behaviour and since he was on a new medication, it wasn't immediately clear why he started drinking more.

Treatment options for hyperthyroidism

In addition to medication, radiation treatment is an option. Surgery is also an option if the growth can be felt by hand. Because our apartment is not very large, it would be really hard to isolate Osiris for the radiation treatment. So we decided to test medication first to see if it helps.

At the moment the correct dose is the one we tested first, which is a relatively small dose. The medication is given every 12 hours. Since this isn't going away, the condition will need to be followed by the vet.

Treatment for diabetes

For diabetes the treatment is insulin. We do have some experience in treating diabetes. Vilma, who I mentioned earlier, also had diabetes in later life. We were glad to see that things have improved in the previous ten years.

For Vilma, we had to give the insulin with syringes. Now we have an insulin pen. The pen makes it a lot easier. Also, insulin is given every 12 hours. Osiris is mostly ok with this, though staying still for over 10 seconds is sometimes really hard for him. But usually, it is enough that I pet him while he gets the medication. There are also some ways to distract him, such as food or treats, if it becomes too difficult otherwise.

Monitoring

One less pleasant thing now is that we have to monitor his blood sugar. We do now have a meter for it. We tried to get measurements from his ears but he does not like it at all. Probably because he isn't used to ear handling. We either couldn't really get blood out or then way too much of it. But now we take the measurements from his metacarpal pad. While the jelly beans (the pads at the bottom of their paws) are sensitive for cats, Osiris tolerates that much better. The biggest issue for him is staying still.

We also need to have checkups at the vet from time to time. Between the checkups, we need to collect 12-hour graphs to get a better big picture of how the blood sugar behaves. For the graph, we need to take measurements every two hours. These days aren't the greatest, but luckily Osiris does allow us to take the measurements. And he does get treats as rewards every time.

The future

We are quite lucky that Osiris allows us to handle him so well. Medications aren't that bad. If the patient would be Lumia, things might be very different.

We shall see how much the dosages will need to be tweaked but for now things seem better. Apparently insulin needs might change for the better - some cats don't need to have insulin for the rest of their lives. But we shall see what happens with Osiris.

The State of Digital Accessibility in Europe

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 09:37:26 GMT

Craftzing creates The Digital Trust Index (DTI) to assess the trustworthiness of European websites. 'The State of Digital Accessibility in Europe' focuses on accessibility and it is the first time that research has been conducted on this large sample of European websites.

The European accessibility act will enforce accessibility requirements more towards the private sector starting from June 28, 2025. The date is getting closer and closer. But are we ready for that? Short answer: No.

Quick summary of the results

Over 260 000 European websitesecond-bests from 18 different countries were tested for accessibility issues. 94% of the sites failed accessibility. So the results are not great.

Finland had the requirements result. At first, this sounds like a great result. But unfortunately, it is quite far from that. Norway, Finland and Sweden were the only three countries that were able to get just below 90%. In Finland, 88.05% of the tested sites failed accessibility tests. So the result is bad. For all the countries.

The most common issues

It didn't really come as a surprise that the most common issues were quite similar to the ones in the Million report. Check out my post about the Million report.

Low contrast text

71% of sites had issues with contrast between text and background.

The contrast between regular text and its background should be at least 4.5:1. And for large text, the contrast should be at least 3:1. I don't understand how hard it can be to achieve this. It shouldn't be this hard.

I do know that some companies love their inaccessible brand colors. But that is not the only reason. And I know that the contrast might not look nearly as bad for many people even if it has slightly less contrast than what is required. But requirements are requirements, just because you or I can see that color, not everyone can.

Missing discernible text for links

63% of sites had link texts that were not understandable. For example, the link might only have an icon and no accessible name at all. These are unfortunately quite common.

And a lot of sites have these vague link texts, like "read more", "click here" or "here". These don't tell much to any user, let alone a screen reader user who is checking all the links on the page at the same time. While having perfect link texts can sometimes be hard, at least aim to get rid of the vague link texts. Instead of just "read more", at least type "read more about the importance of understandable links".

Missing alternative texts for images

33% of sites failed this. I think I've always encountered missing or bad alternative texts in all accessibility audits I've been a part of.

I think some of the problems are due to the requirements that are a bit too generic for many people. Who decides when an image is actually decorative? Even decorative images might bring some value to some users. And users have very differing opinions when it comes to images and their alternative texts. Then there is the alternative text itself. Sometimes it's not easy to know on what level the image should be described.

But here are two quick tips:

pay attention to the alternative texts, and
avoid rubbish alternative texts, such as "asdasdasd", "decorative image" or "image of water".

In other words, make sure that the alternative text sounds reasonable and is translated into each language. One way to check for the alternative text quality is to read the text to someone who hasn't seen the image. Then ask them to describe what they expect to see in the image. Then you can try to compare their description to the actual image and decide if they are close enough to each other or not.

Missing discernible text for buttons

18% of websites contained buttons without text. I don't know what it is with many sites having this issue with both links and buttons.

If you don't know why this matters, a screen reader user is greatly impacted. If the user encounters a button with no discernible text, they will hear only that this is a button. Nothing else. So they will have no idea what the button is supposed to do.

Missing document language

12% of sites did not define the language of the page.

This might not seem like a big problem, and depending on the language skills of the person, it might not be a big problem. But I have experience trying to listen to:

English spoken as Finnish - well, this for a Finnish person might not be so bad since it is quite close to our accent, "rally English". :D
Finnish spoken as English - this actually is horrible and hard to understand.
Swedish spoken as either English or Finnish - these are rather terrible as well, especially since I'm not that strong with Swedish in the first place.

Indistinguishable links in text blocks

11% of websites contain links that can only be identified by colour.

If a link is identified by color alone, there must be sufficient contrast between the link and the background, and also between the link and the surrounding text. Doing all those calculations and comparisons gets tedious, at least in my opinion. I find it much easier to just give links an underline and be done with it.

Besides, an underline is a familiar link indicator for many users. Of course, you can design more unique link styles, but in many cases, I think the extra work is unnecessary. The more common the link styles are, the easier the links are to recognize for a lot of people.

Why do these same errors keep popping up, and at so high rates?

The errors themselves are probably largely due to ignorance. People still lack a lot of knowledge about accessibility in general, let alone the technical requirements.

Mistakes also happen and sometimes go unnoticed. At least I hope people don't go creating issues on purpose.

But one of the reasons why these same deficiencies are repeated year after year is that there is no continuous monitoring of accessibility. There is still a surprising number of people who think that after accessibility has been looked at once, there is no need to return to it. Unfortunately, this is not the case and accessibility should be reviewed and paid attention to throughout the lifecycle of a site.

Of course, when these accessibility issues are found, they should also be addressed. And make sure that the same errors do not return over time.

There are a lot of tools available to designers, developers and content creators to help with accessibility. You can save both time and effort (and money if talking about doing this as a job) if you use even a couple of the tools.

Check out my accessibility site for lists of some tools I've found useful:

Free tools to help monitor accessibility

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 15:57:45 GMT

You don't always have to pay to be able to monitor accessibility. There are also good free options available. While they likely are not nearly as feature-rich as the paid alternatives, they do still work and help out a lot.

Self-hosted tools

If you can host a tool, there are several free options.

Pa11y Dashboard

If you are a developer, you might have heard about Pa11y before. Pa11y dashboard is a web interface to the Pa11y accessibility reporter.

Pa11y Dashboard is available on GitHub.

Salvia

Salvia is the tool the Regional State Administrative Agency uses to do their accessibility monitoring. They have released the source code of the tool on GitHub.

Getting Salvia to work will require some developer knowledge.

The user interface of the tool is nice to use. The results the tool gives aren't the best if you are new to accessibility. But still, the tool is available to us for free, so can't complain! The Regional State Administrative Agency has information about the licensing of the tool on its website. Make sure to check that before you use the tool.

Tools to check single pages

If neither of the self-hosted or paid services are an option for you, don't worry. There are a lot of free tools available that don't require coding expertise.

Deque Axe DevTools (free version)

Axe DevTools has a free version available. While the tool is not as comprehensive without paying for it, the tool is still my favourite.

The user interface is nice and the descriptions of all issues are very clear.

Unfortunately, at the moment I can't afford to get the paid version of the tool. But I've seen a demo of it and it is incredible.

The browser extension is available on Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Lighthouse

Available by default in Chrome. You can access it from the developer tools in the browser.

You can use the tool to check the mobile or desktop version of the page. There are multiple categories you can check results for:

performance,
accessibility,
best practices,
SEO and Progressive Web App.

Wave

I hear a lot of people use this tool. I prefer other tools, but there is nothing wrong with Wave. Wave comes as a browser extension or a website. So if you don't want to install any plugins, check out Wave. The site also provides links to install the browser extensions. A browser extension is available for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

HTML_CodeSniffer

Browser bookmarklet that scans the page for errors, warnings and notices. This was one of the first tools I learned to use actively.

My thoughts on the free tools

I love that we have free tools available! The more people can use tools to help with accessibility monitoring, the better the internet will become. Assuming, of course, that the issues get fixed.

Not everyone can afford the paid tools, especially when many of them seem to be directed towards larger organisations. Hopefully, this will change in the future and we'll see more affordable options.

The free tools do help a lot when it comes to accessibility monitoring. I've been using free tools for many years and I've been able to work on accessibility audits with them. Since I joined Exove, I've had access to paid tools. It has made a difference, but I still also use some of these free tools even if I have access to a paid tool.

There are also a lot of great plugins for checking for specific things like headings and their levels or landmarks. Check my accessibility site for links to some of the ones I like to use.

Expanding my accessibility sites with a site dedicated to WCAG

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 07:41:43 GMT

I always want to expand my accessibility website with useful information. One thing it has been lacking is all the WCAG criteria. I also felt the information would have taken too much room from the site. The site is supposed to be a general information site about all things accessibility. And the WCAG criteria are just a fraction of the topic as a whole. That's when I decided I would create another accessibility site with a much more specific purpose.

Planning the new site

I wanted to gather information about all the WCAG criteria. One reason for this is that I've been going through all the WCAG criteria together with my teammate at work.

Tech stack

I decided to go with the same tech stack as with the original accessibility site, Strapi and Astro. And instead of creating a new backend for the new site, I extended the accessibility site Strapi with a couple of new content types.

The front end follows the main color scheme that all my sites do.

Content work

The content is still a work in progress, though that's the case with all my sites. I think a site is never fully done. But the first version is out in both Finnish and English. I also wanted to ensure that I have the content in Finnish since there is so much less accessibility information available.

Getting a new domain

One thing I'd also been thinking about was getting a specific domain for my accessibility website. While it was mostly about the site domain, I've also been having some other accessibility plans for a while now. And getting a new domain for all of that made sense to me.

And that is how a11y.ing was born. And the idea of having a verb-like term as the name. At least for now, I will only have the English domain, but who knows what happens in the future.

Visit the sites:

A11ying with Sanna - I would if I could

A11ying with Sanna - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Stay tuned for more! Things might take a while to cook, but there are several things I've been planning. And if there are things you'd like to see me do, don't hesitate to reach out! Whether it's some specific content on one of the sites or if it is something completely new, I'm always open to suggestions.

Have fun a11ying!

WebAIM's Million 2024 is out!

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 15:44:52 GMT

I was very happy to hear the planned release time for this year's report. I couldn't wait to get my hands on the data.

The most common errors are still the same

Over 96% of all errors detected fall into these categories. No surprise there. The following are still the most common:

Low contrast text
Missing alternative text
Missing form labels
Empty links
Empty buttons
Missing document language

While the percentages have been going down, what I find quite alarming is that the number of empty buttons is not going down. I have a really hard time understanding why it is so hard to add descriptive text to all links and buttons. It shouldn't be that hard.

Low contrast text is still the most common error

The error is still found on over 80% of home pages.

Sometimes these can happen due to a font using a separate font instance for bold instead of using font-weight. I know from personal experience But I doubt very much that the issue is all that common.

A lot of pages have low contrast text. How can it be? Pretty much all automated tools will report on this, even the free ones. So if anyone has ever taken a look at the front pages with a monitoring tool, these issues should have been fixed already.

Not only are the issues easy to locate, they are also easy to fix on the code side. Well, unless of course, the problematic color is a brand color. But then I'd like to ask the question who picked an inaccessible color for the brand? Well, the question I'd more like to ask is why was it chosen and why hasn't it been changed already. Brands change their look all the time. There are so many shades of colors that it really isn't too hard to find several colors that have enough contrast.

I can understand that not every brand can support AAA-level requirements for their colors. But AA is doable. There are no excuses.

One out of every four linked images was missing alternative text

This is a real problem. When this happens, the links themselves are not descriptive. So this also fails two WCAG criteria instead of "just" one.

All images that act as links need to have a descriptive alternative text that describes the link target.

One third of images don't have good alternative text

The data shows that one third of images on popular home pages may have missing, questionable, or repetitive alternative text. One third!

This includes images that have image alternative text such as alt="image", "graphic", "blank". Or the file name. Or an alternative text that is identical to adjacent text or the alternative text of an adjacent image. We clearly still have much to learn about the alternative texts.

Heading levels are still getting skipped

According to the data, skipped heading levels were present on 37.9% of pages. The number has gone down a bit.

What I found interesting is also that the number of pages with no headings present at all went up. Not great.

Over 30 % of form inputs don't have a proper label

Every form input should have a label. You can label a form field with either

<label>,
aria-label,
aria-labelledby, or
title.

ARIA use has increased by a lot

According to the data, ARIA code usage increased 15% compared to last year.

Would be interesting to know how much of this ARIA was needed.

Also, sites with ARIA usage usually had a higher number of detected errors. But this might not mean anything ARIA-related, the sites might just be more complex. Complexity usually means more errors.

Links continue to have ambiguous link text

13.2% of pages had ambiguous link text. It is a bit less than last year, which is good.

You should generally avoid ambiguous link text, such as "click here", "more", or "continue". They can be only understood within the context they are in. Well, assuming the context tells the user anything more.

The optimal situation would be to have each link be understandable on its own. But for AA-level WCAG compliance, having links that are understood within their context, is ok. So you might, for example, have a link inside a sentence. I would still avoid the examples mentioned above.

Skip links are problematic

Less than 20% of home pages had a skip link present. The number has gone down, which is not great.

What makes the situation worse, one out of every 10 skip links was broken. Either they were inaccessible or the targets didn't exist.

It doesn't help much if we add broken skip links, now does it? Remember to always test these when you make them.

What is the conclusion of the report?

There are more errors. But the results are not all bad.

Sites that had fewer errors before have been improving. This would suggest that increased focus on accessibility has an impact. And I believe it does.

I see a big difference in my work if a client really cares about accessibility. Clients who care and because of that focus more on the topic, have been able to reduce the number of errors present on their site. Some have had quite big numbers even. But the clients who don't care, haven't seen such improvements. I hope I can make more clients of mine care about this important topic during this year!

Regulation in general seems to work. Sectors like government and education are doing much better than others. This does make sense because money is a motivator. It's a shame that it's needed, but I'm still glad to see that it has an effect.

Getting psychological safety back

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 16:35:14 GMT

I've been meaning to write about this topic for quite a while now. In 2021 I realized I had lost pretty much every bit of psychological safety at work. Since the work week takes quite a bit of time of the whole week, the lack of safety affected me a lot outside of it as well. I needed to get out.

My journey towards psychological safety started at Exove. Ever since I joined, I've slowly felt more and more safe. Even with the more recent bigger changes currently going on, I haven't been too worried.

Why is psychological safety so important to me?

When you have to constantly be afraid that something bad will happen, it is exhausting. Any tiny mistake or oversight might trigger something catastrophic.

In the past, I've had to deal with very unpredictable people. I always felt insecure about myself and my environment. I had to watch my surroundings at all times so I could try to prepare for the sudden changes that might happen at any time.

For a long time, I felt invisible. My opinions or thoughts never mattered. I never wanted to be the centre of attention. If I was invisible, I was more likely to be safe. I could hide. But this kept me back and wasn't healthy. I was getting tired of being so afraid.

What effects has psychological safety at work had on me?

I now feel quite secure again. I can even talk about my anxieties and other mental issues without having to worry about getting judged for it. It's important to talk about mental health to make it less stigmatizing and more normal. These things are more common than you might expect.

I'm not terrified of making mistakes anymore. I don't like making them, though I doubt not many people do. But at least I no longer torment myself for days if I make a silly little mistake from time to time.

Both managers I've had at Exove have been incredibly supportive. I feel seen, heard and valued. That is a new feeling for me. I've noticed that I trust these two people very much. I have a lot of amazing colleagues as well. I've never been a part of so caring and supportive environment.

I'm not afraid to bring up things that need improvement. I also like to take part in developing processes and ways of working. This is very motivating for me. And it does also have the benefit of actually improving things. The whole time I've received encouragement to bring up improvement ideas.

I have started to push myself towards new challenges. I do it a lot these days. I've never been comfortable speaking in public. But somehow I've become one of the regular trainers at Exove. I even did a public webinar with a close colleague. I wouldn't have imagined I'd be capable of doing any of this if you had asked me five or ten years ago.

The stability of feeling psychologically safe at work has also affected my general mental health. My partner has always been my number one supporter. But nowadays I have the courage to speak much more about my feelings and mental state. I've noticed how much of a difference it makes to not try to keep everything to myself.

Psychological safety encouraged me to seek help

I'm currently working on some of my issues with a professional. The whole situation still feels weird to me. But I'm trying my best to not let it get in the way. I want to make the most of this opportunity to navigate my past and my feelings.

When it comes to me, I can't trust my brain. The judgement and the hatred have been perverting my self-image. Having someone "from the outside" notice these behavioural issues has helped me a lot. I'm starting to understand much better where all these actions and feelings come from. It's not me being bad or stupid. Instead, these were created as ways to protect my younger self from everything that was happening. Sadly nowadays they are doing much more bad than good for me.

One of the things I've been now taught to try is to aim to be as empathetic towards myself as I am towards others. Easier said than done. But maybe one day. While my partner has helped me so much during our time together (it's now been a bit over 20 years!), a professional is still a professional. And it's not my partner's job to fix me.

I hope I can help make Exove as safe for others as the company has been for me. And I hope we never lose the care and support we have had in our company culture. This is my favourite thing about Exove. The people are so wonderful.

How to create more accessible content - avoid common accessibility mistakes

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 14:17:33 GMT

There are a lot of ways to improve the accessibility of content on websites.

Use headings to provide structure, not visual features

Some people tend to use headings which look the nicest in their opinion. I understand aiming for a visual look and feel. But you should use heading levels to define the page structure. Skipped heading levels and illogical heading structures can be confusing. Assistive technologies use the heading levels to define the structure for the users.

If you feel like the heading-level styles aren't working well on your website, there are options. Talk with the designer or developer to get those styles changed to something that you think works better visually for the content. But never sacrifice the proper page structure. The same principles work for both websites and documents. In both the structure is important and the heading visual styles can be altered if needed.

It's also important that your headings are descriptive. The user should be able to tell what the content below is about by looking at the headings.

I have also written about the importance of headings some time ago.

Always use clear and descriptive link texts

While on the WCAG AA level, it is enough to provide link texts with enough clarity in the context they are in, I do recommend always providing good link texts. Read more, click here and the likes are never descriptive enough in my opinion. At least I recommend providing a bit more information to assistive technology users via ARIA properties.

Pay extra attention to page content quality

Use clear and concise language. Make sure to have the most important content at the beginning. Even though we all think our content is all important, the reality is that not all users will read all of it. By adding the most important bits to the beginning, it will be more likely that information gets read.

I have written more about writing accessible website text content on my accessibility website.

Don't over-format your text

There are a lot of formatting options available to you on most content editors. While those might be tempting, avoid using them too much. Many types of formatting can reduce the readability of your content. Underlining regular text might confuse your users because underlined text is usually a link. Italicizing text can make words more difficult to separate from one another. All capital letters make letters harder to recognize.

Flattening text on both sides makes it less readable because the spacings between the words will not be the same. Also, centered text is more challenging to read, especially if the text is on the longer side. So avoid both flattening and centering the main content text.

And if you feel the need to add a different color to some part of the text, there are a few of things to remember. First, don't use the same color as is used in the links (assuming there is a color difference there). Second, remember to make sure there is enough contrast between the color and the background. And last but not least, don't use only color to convey meaning.

Alternative texts exist for a reason

Assistive technology users are provided with the alternative text of an image. They don't get anything else from the image. If there is a problem with an image, the alternative text is visible in the place of the image. So it doesn't exist only for assistive technology users.

Decorative images

If you leave the alternative text of an image empty, you tell screen readers that they can skip the image. This is a good way to reduce the cognitive load for assistive technology users.

Sometimes it is hard to know when an image is decorative and when it might provide something for a user. And that is ok. Do your best and always try to give a good alternative text for an image. The user can skip ahead if they don't want to hear the alternative text. It's better to provide a good alternative for a decorative image than to provide a bad one or mark a meaningful image as decorative.

I have written more about this on my accessibility website. Check out the page about image accessibility if you'd like to read more about the topic. I have also written a blog post about image alternative texts.

Where to learn more?

There are a lot of good resources online. My accessibility site has a lot of information I've gathered over the years. I aim to provide a single place where you can find as much information as you can (and need). If you have any content requests, you can, for example, send me a message on LinkedIn. I will do my very best to create new content for you.

I wrote recently about the same topics on Exove's blog. Reach a wider audience by making your text content more accessible. If accessibility interests you on a larger scale, make sure to follow the company blog as well. We also had a webinar in Finnish on this topic. If you are interested in watching the recording, make sure to head to the download page.

And of course last but not least I do write about accessibility to this blog as well.

Alan Wake II - even more horrible as the first one!

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 10:20:38 GMT

Once again Remedy did it! The game is fantastic, while also absolutely horrible. And by horrible, I mean haunting and intimidating. The story is captivating and the characters are all great. It's not Control (which to this day is still probably my favourite game), but it's great.

Finnish humour

Well, Remedy does like to bring in quite a bit of Finnish things in their games. That is a fun way of having something recognizable for us Finns, and something that people who don't know much about Finland, can recognize later if they ever would come here.

And again we had Ahti present, giving us some translated Finnish sayings. I still find them incredibly funny. Ahti is still my favourite character in a game. And the song 'Yötön yö' is pretty much on repeat in my head.

The music is once again absolutely on point

That shouldn't be much of a surprise. Because the Old Gods of Asgard are back. And once again we have a lot of their music in the game. Also very much relating to the game storyline is the 13-and-a-half minute song 'Herald of Darkness'. Oh my, it's super nice also outside of the game.

There also are songs by various artists between each of the story chapters. They were a nice way to calm down after the previous chapter.

The visuals are stunning

I liked spending time during the more calm phases just to look around. The reason why I chose the calm phases was of course the fact that I was always terrified that enemies would pop up while I'm being happy and looking at the scenery. The scenery looks fantastic and there are just so many incredible details in the game.

My biggest dislike was the jump scares

The only thing I really don't enjoy about the game are the jump scares. I scared poor Osiris several times throughout the game. The first jump scare made me even scream. They did update the game with settings to reduce the jump scares but they couldn't be completely turned off. And I do see the value in the graphics and sounds in the jump scares. But I didn't think I would have missed anything important if I could have just saved myself from those.

Especially because of the jump scares, there were some environments I decided I would not even try to play in. This has probably been one of our most played solo games that we actually played actively together. There was one tunnel that was getting smaller.... nope! And then there was this really eerie place where I would have had to go into dark water in pitch-black darkness. Even more nope! I did know that there wouldn't be sharks or other water monsters in the game but I just couldn't really handle all that. Also, from time to time, my anxiety just got the better of me and I realised that it's better to give the controller away and just watch the gameplay for a while.

What I found quite funny is that I was able to scare myself more than once. Every single time I ran through a door, I got scared. The biggest reason for it was probably that I never meant to do it.

Two different storylines

The game has two quest lines, one for Alan Wake and one for Saga Anderson. You could switch between the storylines whenever you saw a janitor's bucket in the safe spots. A really fun approach, which allowed the freedom to choose when to switch to the other storyline.

Both storylines have their unique collectables and functionalities. Both characters also have their weapons and inventories. Either we are better at the game now or then Alan Wake 2 is slightly easier for ammunition control.

Saga's storyline is all about changing the horror story going on

Saga and her family, as well as the people around the towns, are getting different realities from the horror story. Saga's journey is all about trying to save especially her family. Saga also has an interesting family line, but I don't want to spoil that.

Much of Saga's work happens in the Mind Place, where you can solve clues and profile characters. I won't spoil more of that, but the Mind Place is interesting and you get more information about it as you go further in the story.

There are cult stashes to open while exploring. Sometimes you need to find a key, sometimes solve a puzzle, etc. There were even some math calculations to be done, which were quite fun, to be honest. We grabbed a tablet and wrote down the equations we needed to solve.

Alan's storyline focuses on his attempts to get back home

Alan's adventures take place in the Dark Place. Alan needs to find murder sites to allow him to get closer to home.

The monsters in the Dark Place are dark figures. Some of the dark figures will fade away, but some will reveal to be the usual bad guys who will start murdering you when they get close. I found this to be very anxiety-inducing. And we did waste some bullets and flashlight charges just to notice that it was indeed just a shadow. But since we didn't play on the hardest mode, it proved to be an ok technique to just wait and see if you'd get attacked. Didn't do anything positive towards the anxiety of the situation, though. The shadows were also loudly whispering "Alan" or "Alan Wake", which was really terrifying from time to time.

In the Dark Place, you can find Tim Breaker. Tim will assist you on your journey in the dark place. You'll find him when you hear whistling. What's slightly funny about Tim is that he is portrayed by Shawn Ashmore. Nothing funny about that part, Shawn is an excellent casting. But we are currently watching a series called the Rookie, where Shawn plays a lawyer. So no matter what we do in the evenings, we will spend some time with Shawn.

There is also another celebrity casting in the Dark Place, Warlin Door portrayed by David Harewood.

This is a game you should definitely play

If you haven't yet, I do recommend you play the game. While the game does bring out my anxieties, I feel it's still very manageable. But we do play mostly with the lights on :D

I also love that they bring setting updates to the game after release. Can't wait to see if there will be more games in the Alan Wake / Control storyline.

The six most common accessibility errors on the top million home pages

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 07:25:42 GMT

As an accessibility enthusiast, I enjoy digging into various surveys and statistics about accessibility. The WebAIM Million reports on the accessibility of the top million home pages. The latest report is from 2023, I hope they will release a Million report in 2024. And this is also why I took the time to dig into the last year’s report so I’m better prepared to compare what has been changing. I find the results very fascinating.

The most common WCAG failures on home pages

The numbers have changed a bit from year to year, but these most common errors have been the same for five years! These are the most common errors on home pages:

Low contrast
Missing alternative text
Empty links
Missing form labels
Empty buttons
Missing document language

Missing document language and empty buttons have switched places, but they both remain among the most common errors.

What is most interesting about these errors is that they are quite easy to fix, at least when compared to other types of errors that can occur. So why haven’t the top million home pages been remedied for these?

Low contrast

This problem was present on over 80% of the home pages. That is a huge percentage! Are organizations so fixed on their brand colors never changing that they aren’t willing to work on this?

Missing alternative text

Missing alternative texts were present on over 58% of the home pages. The report doesn’t count images with empty alt text, like some accessibility monitoring tools these days do. So over 20% of home pages are missing alternative text for an image. What makes it even worse is that according to the report, over half of these images were linked images. Which means that those links were not descriptive at all. And this now violates several WCAG criteria.

According to the report, 10% of images with alternative text had bad ones. Alternative texts along the lines of “image”, “graphic”, “blank” or the file name. So essentially useless.

I think a lot of this boils down to not understanding what the alternative text is for. There is still a lot of work to be done educating people on this.

Empty links

Empty links were present in half of the home pages! And still, to this day, way too many links have ambiguous link text, like “click here”, “more”, and “continue”. We need to get rid of these as well as ensure all links always have a link text.

In my work, these kinds of empty links occur often when there is an image or an icon that defines the link. These happen with both developers and content editors. We need to improve our understanding of the importance of descriptive link texts. I have a feeling that this, like many other accessibility problems, is happening because people don’t understand why these things are important.

Missing form labels

Missing form labels occur in over 35% of form inputs. This is a big number still, but the number has improved from previous years. So good progress has been made already. But there is still work to be done.

The report doesn’t say which types of inputs these were, but one very common occurrence I see in my work is search functionalities. With those the visible label is often missing, and this increases the probability of missing also the accessible name of this input field. I always recommend having visible labels for forms because that helps all the users regardless of their abilities or tools.

Empty buttons

Empty buttons occur in almost 30% of the home pages. And this is the one category where the percentage has gone up from what it was in 2019. In my work, I’ve noticed these can easily happen with buttons that are visually represented by an icon. Not many developers add a visually hidden text for the button and often the icon itself doesn’t have a text alternative.

Missing document language

Missing document language was present in almost 20% of the home pages. In addition to being a problem for accessibility, this is a problem for code quality as well. This is often something the developer of the website has to take care of. Many tools and CMS systems provide these already by default.

The numbers are improving

While the numbers are still way too big in my opinion, it’s relieving to notice that the numbers are slowly improving. There have been setbacks but for the most part, the occurrences are less frequent than they used to be five years ago. And of course, there are differences between sectors.

I recommend everyone to take a look at the Million reports, they also cover more topics than these most common problems. We still have a lot of work to do!

Continuing on the journey of accessibility certifications

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 09:29:58 GMT

Last year I passed the Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS) certification. IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals) also provides another certification - CPACC (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies). If someone passes both of these exams, they get a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA) certificate as well. This was my goal because I had noticed a lot of public speakers had this certificate. In my mind, the certificate would hopefully convince my brain that I know my stuff when it comes to accessibility.

I applied for a training budget so that I wouldn't need to pay for this certification out of my pocket. And luckily once again Exove saw the value in me continuing my journey.

Preparing for the exam

After liking Deque's WAS preparation course, I immediately knew I wanted to buy the CPACC preparation course as well. I was eager to get started on my studies before knowing if I would be able to get the budget for the certificate so this time I did buy the preparation course on my own. The course helped me once again to have some structure in my studies.

Once again I struggled with the vague outline for the studies because I always need clear guidance on what to study. However, I used the other materials available quite extensively. The flashcards and the Jeopardy game IAAP shared were some of the first ones I started to use to help me study.

I wanted to focus my studies on things that would be useful in my work. So instead of focusing on dates or other things like this, I took a deeper dive into the different models of disabilities and the various disabilities themselves. This kind of information, especially more extensive knowledge of it, will certainly help me in my work as well.

Applying for the exam

I thought to use the same approach as with the WAS exam - the last exam slot of the year and the last day possible to take it. Funnily enough, the last available exam day was a week before the exam slot ended so I kind of lost one week of study time. Luckily I had started studying early, so I had finished the topics multiple times already and didn't start to panic.

The exam

I once again asked for the extra hour available for non-native speakers. To make sure I had time to pause and think of the words and sentences that might not be obvious to me. The language did not cause any issues, there were no words I didn't understand. I didn't end up needing the extra time, which wasn't a surprise because I've always been quite fast at exams for some reason. Maybe it's the panic and fear that cause me to just fill something in quickly and leave. But I went through the exam questions twice, just like last time. And unfortunately, again I decided to change an answer I was unsure about... and it would have been correct if I didn't stop doubting my intuition. Oh well, this is something that I always do.

Waiting for the results

They say results come after four to six weeks after the exam slot closes. This time the results came 3 weeks after the exam, which I wasn't expecting. What a nice early Christmas present for me because after leaving work on Friday I happened to check my email in the evening and two emails were waiting for me. One congratulated me on passing the CPACC exam and another congratulated me on getting the CPWA certificate. I couldn't be happier and I feel proud of myself. Can't wait to tell the good news to my friends and colleagues as well.

Accessible design - avoid the common pitfalls

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 13:25:07 GMT

There are a lot of accessibility pitfalls when it comes to design. Here are some thoughts and ideas for the most common ones I encounter in my work.

Start the design process in black and white

This is a tip I learned from a course a while back. When you start the design in black and white, you can also make sure your design works without colours.

And when you are done designing in black and white, then you can add the colours. This way you will test the design in black and white automatically. If you start with colours, you need to separately remember to test for black and white.

Aim higher than the minimum requirements for colour contrast

I've seen a lot of designers choose colours that just meet the bare minimum requirements. While this might be necessary with some company brand colours, do always outside of that aim a bit higher. I'm not telling you to always aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AAA requirement of 7:1 but aim a bit higher than just 3:1 or 4.5:1.

Also, always remember to check all your colour choices against all used background colours. In many cases, the same colours won't work with both dark and light backgrounds.

The user should be your main focus

I get that sometimes it is fun to be super creative and create all new and fancy-looking things. But often I unfortunately in these situations notice that the user experience has been completely forgotten. So make sure to design the site/product first and foremost for the users and then add visual nice features on top of that.

User interface design is important. It should come before the visuals because users and their user experience should come first. Don't reinvent common elements, use them as they are expected to be used.

Interactive elements should have clear hover and focus styles

Hover styles aren't required in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Unless you add them, then those need to comply with the rules, e.g. colour contrast. But for many users, hover styles are what confirm that you can interact with the element.

Focus styles on the other hand are required in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The focus style should be visible and clear enough on all backgrounds. You can use the browser defaults, but in their current state, they are less visible than properly designed custom styles. With focus styles, it's also surprisingly easy to meet WCAG AAA-level requirements. Two pixels wide solid outline with a bit of offset from the element itself should be enough.

And don't forget the default state of interactive elements. It should be visually clear if an element can be interacted with. Otherwise, it will be guesswork and you add a lot more cognitive load for the user.

Alternative colour schemes

Dark modes or dark variants have been around for a while now. But it is still quite uncommon on a lot of public sector websites, at least around here in Finland. There are a lot of benefits to darker colour schemes. First of all, allowing your user to choose between a lighter and a darker scheme makes the design more accessible. But also having a darker theme is more environmentally friendly. Darker themes consume less energy than lighter themes on mobile devices, at least that is what I've been told.

Consider if you should also provide your users with high-contrast modes. But often when a user wants these, they have the possibility of using their OS to increase contrast. On Windows machines that option is quite powerful and on Macs it seems to be a bit less that. Browsers do have some plugins for this functionality as well. So it might not be necessary to have these options on the sites, but is good to think about them as well.

Accessibility should never be an afterthought

Patching a finished design with accessibility is harder and more expensive than just having accessibility as a part of the process from the start.

Whenever possible, test the designs with actual assistive technology users and people with disabilities. That way you will get the accessibility feedback from the people who benefit from them the most. A lot of times I've seen multiple user personas created as a part of a design process. And sadly I've yet to see a person with disabilities amongst them. The only place where I've seen some user personas mention disabilities is the persona sets specifically designed with disabilities in mind. Let's try to change that, shall we?

Moving my accessibility site to Astro

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 07:09:24 GMT

Recently I've had some problems with the front end of the site. The biggest reason for switching the technology on the front end was the massive issues with the prefetch that my site had. I couldn't disable the feature, and it occasionally caused even 10-second load times due to it trying to prefetch everything in the menu and failing to do that. In addition to that, there also is an issue on Netlify which prevents me from updating Next.js to the newest version to see if that would have fixed the issue. Well, it had been a moment since my last upgrade project so I decided to do it now.

Changes on the backend

I kept Strapi as the backend since I haven't had any issues with it. But I did switch from GraphQL to JSON. Astro supports GraphQL as well, but I had no reason to use it anymore.

Changes on the frontend

Well, the tech stack changed a bit. Since I moved from one modern stack to another, the process was quite painless and I was able to reuse almost all of my code. That was nice and allowed me to focus on the actual world of Astro.

I kept the site search as a React component, but otherwise, everything else is now done with the Astro syntax. I liked using Astro quite a bit, I might switch my other sites to use it at some point as well.

Feelings about Astro

Astro provides a good amount of documentation. I found it relatively easy to make the switch. I think I only searched for something outside of their documentation once or twice. So pretty much everything was handled well in the documentation.

Astro also has a nice helper function for fetching Strapi content. The function was understandable to me and I found it simple enough to do some small modifications to it based on my site's needs. What a nice way to save time!

The documentation says that Astro is an all-in-one web framework for building fast, content-focused websites. Exactly what I'm after. And I must say that based on this experience, I agree with them.

Language support

You can create multilingual sites with Astro. The process with the translations is quite similar to what they are with Next.js. Since this was an important feature for me, I was happy to see that Astro was able to support my language needs.

The result

I'm very happy with the result. The site is now so much faster. Also, the site is now almost fully static, which works well with the type of the site. The content doesn't change constantly, so the constant checking for new content felt a bit wasted with the site before.

If you haven't taken a look at Astro, I recommend you visit the Astro site!

Don't forget to maintain your accessibility statement

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 11:09:24 GMT

The accessibility statement should be updated if problems on the site are fixed or new ones are found. It is a general recommendation that the statement should also include a timetable for fixing the problems. It is important to remember that the accessibility statement is not there so problems on the site can just be written down and forgotten about.

I thought it might be a good idea to refresh your memory of the things relating to the accessibility statements, especially now that the amendments to the Act on the Provision of Digital Services are coming into force on June 28, 2025.

The accessibility statement is required by Finnish law

It's also good to remember that the accessibility statement is required by the law here in Finland. If a site is subject to accessibility requirements, it is also subject to the requirement for an accessibility statement.

There aren't strict requirements for the formatting of the statement, but there are certain parts you must have in it. Firstly, it must be easy to locate. A common place for it is, for example, in the footer of a website.

The statement must also be accessible. The law does not say whether the accessibility statement should be on a separate page on the website or, for example, as a file link. In many cases, the implementation as a page is by default a more accessible solution than as a file. File accessibility requires both know-how and the right tools.

Requirements for the accessibility statement

There are four requirements for the statement under Finnish law:

The statement must include an explanation of which parts of the content of the service provider's digital service do not meet the accessibility requirements. In addition, this must include a justification for the deviation from the accessibility requirements.
The statement must include instructions on how the user can access the information contained in the digital service or an alternative way of accessing the service if the service or any part of it is not in an accessible format for the user.
The statement must include the electronic contact details of the service provider to which the user can send accessibility feedback.
The statement must include a link to the website of the supervisory authority where the user can lodge an accessibility complaint or request for clarification.

Why all the fuss about the accessibility statement? Who cares about it?

The statement is useful for website owners and people doing accessibility monitoring. But the group of people who benefit from it the most are the end users. By reading an accessibility statement, a user can decide whether a website is accessible enough to them and not waste their time on a website they cannot use. So the value of the accessibility statement can’t be underestimated.

You can use the accessibility statement to include more than the required things, though. You can use it to bring transparency and accountability. You can inform the users about the efforts that are being made to ensure accessibility and inclusivity.

Accessibility is a continuous project

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 14:13:32 GMT

Some people still think that accessibility is something that you do once and then you are good forever. While that might even be true if everyone takes care of accessibility on their part from this point on, it is very much more likely that the quality of accessibility will start to decline if it isn't monitored and properly taken care of. There are multiple ways of doing this and these are my recommendations.

Frequently done accessibility audits

Accessibility auditing is a good way to get the current accessibility status of a website. The frequency recommendation for an audit varies based on how often the site gets updated (both content and new features). Usually, the recommended frequency is once a year. The audit is also a good foundation for updating the site accessibility statement.

What is an accessibility audit?

An accessibility audit is an assessment of the state of accessibility of a website. Usually, it is carried out by at least one accessibility expert. Some companies have certified accessibility specialists who work on audits, but that is not a requirement, so not everyone does that, unfortunately.

Usually, it is recommended that an external party does the audit. But the law does allow you to monitor yourself. However, auditing a website properly does take expertise and knowledge of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). If you buy an audit from a company, I recommend adding their name to the accessibility statement as well.

I also wrote about this topic on Exove's blog recently where I took a look at accessibility auditing at Exove: Accessibility audit? What is it and why should you invest in it? If you have any auditing needs, you can contact Exove and ask for me!

Accessibility monitoring

You can monitor the state of accessibility yourself or you can buy it as a service from someone. While technically you don't need any specific tools, having an automated tool at your disposal usually does bring its benefits. They unfortunately do cost a bit (or a lot, depending on the tool or service), so they might be out of reach for some. If that happens to be you, don't worry, you don't have to have such a tool in order to monitor the state of accessibility. You'll just need to do a bit more manual work than someone who can spend the money on tools.

Automated tools

Tools and services like, for example, Siteimprove or Deque axe tools provide you with good automated tools to monitor the state of accessibility of the website. Depending on the package or service you get, you might get other useful quality monitoring as well. But on the accessibility side, the tool will list all issues and where those are found on the website. While it's important to remember that no automated tool can find all possible accessibility issues, having this type of tool will free manual testing time to be spent on the things automated tools cannot find. The tools might find also some language-related problems, like typos. But especially if you operate in a language that isn't as common as English, the automated tools might not be able to assist you.

Some companies also provide this kind of monitoring as a service. So if you have the money to spend, you can get the monitoring from another party and save your time for other things. Sometimes going through the automated tool and getting rid of false positives that might occur is a job that alone takes hours. It, of course, depends on the size and state of the website as well as your understanding of accessibility.

Developer workflows for the website

If you are working with a developer or a company with developers, they should have some automated monitoring in place as well for the code they produce. That should reduce some of the low-hanging fruits when it comes to easily detectable accessibility issues. And of course, if you are the developer, make sure you use these types of tools! Again, automation like this cannot find all issues. Manual checking for the features created should also take place on the developer's side. Still, a developer might not be able to test with the actual content, so at least some accessibility testing should also be done in production with the actual content of the site.

Check the grammar and quality of the text content

Punctuation and grammar checkers will improve the quality of your text. These tools are particularly useful if you operate in a language that you don't speak natively. While often they are used before publishing content, there is nothing preventing you from using these to check the existing content of your website. And don't forget to proofread your content either. While these aren't necessarily specifically related to monitoring accessibility, they bring a lot of value to accessibility as well. Especially if there are multiple content creators working on the content, it might be really beneficial to use these types of tools to make sure their content is of equal quality.

You need to keep your accessibility statement up to date

If there are issues listed in the accessibility statement, those should be fixed eventually. And it is also helpful to provide your users with some idea of when issues are getting fixed. But you cannot just leave the issues in the statement and expect you can keep them there forever. That is really not the case.

You don't need accessibility audits to update your accessibility statement, but at least on larger websites, it does help a lot. And if you get the audits done by different companies, do remember to update also when the last audit was done and who it was done by.

Benefits of accessibility training

Whether you are the sole person working on a hobby website or if you work for a company, you might benefit from accessibility training. Especially if you don't have a proper routine to creating content, it's both easy and natural to forget things that you might have learned in the past. Especially on a company level where there might be people coming and going, accessibility training might even be crucial in order to make sure the level of accessibility doesn't decline.

If you are in need of any type of accessibility training (apart from the lawyer side of things), again you can contact Exove and ask for me! I'd be happy to organise a training for you based on your accessibility needs!

Accessibility policy can help define and maintain accessibility processes

A web accessibility policy is a document that has your goals and targets. At a minimum, you should define what accessibility standard you aim to conform to and by when. An accessibility policy will help standardize the way your organization approaches accessibility. You should have guidelines in the policy that help people understand the implications and their role.
The policy doesn't need to be a public document. The primary value is internal. But it might bring you some extra value by making your commitment to accessibility shown publicly.

I've written a bit about accessibility policies before:

On my blog: Developing an accessibility policy
On my accessibility site: Accessibility policy

Final Fantasy 16 - a truly captivating story with unpleasant battle mechanics

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 04:53:58 GMT

Final Fantasy 16 is a game that has a lot of videos in it. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT! It was noticeable while playing already (well, duh), but now that I'm currently playing the game on new game plus, I'm skipping videos constantly. Probably might be a good idea to wait a bit until playing the new game plus so I wouldn't remember all the videos. But then again, I'm a trophy hunter who likes to get all the trophies as soon as possible.

The music and the visuals

The visuals are impressive. I've spent a lot of time taking a deeper look at the sceneries. The music is also really good, it really fits the game. I've fallen in love with the music that plays before I turn the game on the PS5.

I found it slightly hilarious that they did bring some kind of transmog features to the game in an update. I think it is a very useless feature for this type of game. Though, I did use it, of course, since it was available. Torgal actually looks absolutely magnificent with the alternate skin. Brings the frostwolf in him more alive even.

The battle mechanics

I knew I wouldn't like the battle style before getting the game. I'm an old school Final Fantasy player, I enjoy the turn-based strategy from the older games. Now you'll just spam some buttons. If the Final Fantasy wasn't about good stories, I wouldn't have bought it at all.

And to make it even worse for me, you'll get the cinematic battles! Those, where you in a certain moment press a specific button, or worse, spam a button. Just give me the cinematic and let me enjoy it. My dislike for these battle styles is what have prevented me from playing the God of War game series. I just don't like these.

There are some interesting things like the Eikons with their abilities, though. And it's good that I can test and change my skills as well as their upgrades without a cost.

In some of the battles, they took things even further and there were really unnecessary battle mechanics. Like flying the Phoenix. In that fight all you could hear from our livingroom was me complaining that I couldn't give a shit about this type of combat.

This game has one of the best stories I've played through

I like the story. I mean, I really, really like it. The story is what keeps me getting back to the game almost every evening. And the best part is that the side quests actually bring a lot of detail to the actual story. Even though I sometimes find it a bit annoying that side quests appear constantly when I've been planning to move forward in the main quest, the side quests are still definitely worth it. They bring so much depth to the relationships and everything.

The characters in the game are a joy to follow

The characters feel also quite real. As in, the developers haven't felt the need to put an annoying character into the game, like they often do. Well, some characters are annoying because of how they are. For example, Mid is an annoyingly demanding person who doesn't even know the names of people around her. But Mid as a character is still well done and realistic. If you've played more Final Fantasy games, I'm sure you know where I'm getting at here.

The characters are surprisingly believable in general. And a fun little thing is also that they actually swear in the game. That brings a lot of credibility. They don't swear a lot, but when you hear a character suddenly yell "FUCK!", you know something is going on. The only character that felt a bit shallow and filled with clichés was the main nemesis. And I can understand why they did that.

I also really enjoy that the main characters in the game are amazing people. Clive and Joshua both are selfless and real heroes. Pretty much everyone loves them and it's very obvious why that is. Often you have a type of antihero as the main character. For example, that was the case in the previous game. There is nothing of the sort in this game. The characters have realistic emotions. For example, seeing Jill being obviously annoyed and jealous of Isabelle was a fresh type of quest.

Also, of course, I just love Torgal. Especially because they bring quite a surprising amount of depth to the feelings and behaviours of him. As an animal lover, I naturally also enjoy the ability of pet and play with Torgal. Unfortunately, he is the only animal you can pet. Though, if it was possible to pet every animal you see... I probably would have never finished the game.

Another very interesting part to me was that Ralph Ineson had a role in this game as well. He plays Lorath in Diablo 4 as well, if you haven't played the game. But here he is the voice of Cid. And I already loved his work in Diablo 4, but here he just shines even more. What a fantastic voice actor! But, that's not to say that the rest of the voice actors would be bad in this game. Far from it. Every actor is well selected and they bring very much depth to their characters.

The only character I was a bit disappointed with was the main villain. The character was a bit shallow and full of clichés. While I get why they'd do that, I would have preferred to have more depth in the villain as well.

I think this is at least one of the best games character-wise I've played, if not the best.

The gameplay

Personally I would have enjoyed the story possibly more if I'd just been presented with the story in videos. While I didn't mind traveling around and talking with people, the battle mechanics are just not for me. And I'm not saying this because I'm bad at the mechanics, because that is not the case. I just don't enjoy those types of mechanics at all. And sometimes the fact that they bring more "feeling" to opening a heavy door by adding an extra button to press to get the door while the controller vibrates... completely unnecessary, in my opinion. Some probably like those since that has been implemented in the game. But that is not for me. Let me just open the door and get on with it. I don't mind the controller shaking or the character struggling to open it, but let me stay out of it.

Also, the chocobo feels clumsy and I usually don't use it much. And to be honest, I do miss the chocobo music from Final Fantasy 8. That was my jam. I'm happy they also shed some light on the relationship of Clive and his chocobo. That is a sentence I wouldn't have expected to say before playing this game. Usually, the chocobos have felt more like a vehicle than an extra character. Though usually the main characters of the games do treat them well and all that. But with Clive and his chocobo, the relationship is much more than that.

If you enjoy a Final Fantasy story, I do recommend you to play this. Even if you are like me and don't enjoy the battle mechanics, the story itself is absolutely amazing. I can't wait to see if I get some good DLC story additions in the future.

Common accessibility myths and misconceptions

Sun, 24 Sep 2023 08:28:25 GMT

I hear a lot of misconceptions about accessibility that I'd like to try to correct today. Of course, these are mostly my opinions of things, but I have spent a lot of time on these topics so hopefully, I can broaden your mind a bit if nothing else.

Accessibility is ugly

This is a myth I still hear constantly. While it is true that accessible design can also be ugly, so can a design that isn't accessible. If proper color contrasts turn you completely off, then I'd say you have a problem. Accessible designs can be very beautiful and unique, it's all about the skills of the designer.

And yes, on some level you might be able to recognize a design that is accessible. But I don't see that as an issue. Because clarity and ease of use aren't something that we should consider problems. Use of a tool - whether it be online or not - should be as intuitive and as effortless as possible. At least to me, this is a purely positive thing. And this doesn't mean that you cannot design things that look visually pleasing.

But since we are unique beings with our own preferences, not everyone will like the same designs. That is a reality, but try not to put that on accessibility. Rather put it on design trends.

Accessibility is expensive

If accessibility is an afterthought, of course, it can be expensive to try to patch the inaccessible implementation. But when accessibility is involved in every step of the process, accessibility becomes a natural part of the process with much, much less cost.

If the functionality will be something fully custom, then you might need more work on the accessibility side. But in general, accessible web development doesn't require expensive extra work. When a designer and a developer are aware of what accessibility requires from them, they don't have to go back and forth to issue fixing.

Accessibility comes cheaper and cheaper with good processes, tools, and experience. And to be honest, even if it sometimes does cost a bit extra, the value from getting more users to your offering should make it worth your while. We are still talking about real human beings after all. And I think sometimes we still forget that and just focus on accessibility as some kind of an extra requirement that is not based on a real need.

My customers aren't blind, so why should I focus on accessibility?

I've still heard this from time to time but luckily less frequently than I did even just a few years ago. Some people have their own thoughts on who needs accessibility and they just assume their thoughts are correct. Most often they are not.

For example, accessibility is not just for people who are blind. Or people who use a wheelchair. People with disabilities are a large minority and every single one of us can become a part of that minority at any time. So think of it less as something for some small distant group but think of it as something for your future self. If you have a hard time being empathic to someone else's cause, then think about your own future. With age, it is more and more likely that we will need accessibility. Age vision, loss of motor skills, loss of hearing, etc. Those are just a couple of things that are very common age-related realities.

Accessibility really helps us all. Some areas of course more than others but as a whole it helps everyone. Clear and intuitive user experience should be something we all want. Even if you don't care about the people behind the requirements, care about the user experience for all users. But please, I ask you to try caring about the actual people behind the requirements! It will make all of this a lot easier to understand.

I shouldn't need accessibility audits because my website was made accessible from the start

Well, technically you would be correct to assume things are quite well. But that is only if everyone has indeed done their part correctly. And I'm not saying someone does things wrong on purpose. But we are all human and sometimes we make mistakes. And sometimes there can be a specific case where a specific feature or content fails that we just weren't able to predict beforehand. And this isn't taking into account the possibility that not everyone who has touched the site knows what they are doing.

And the more people are involved, the easier it is to make a mistake on the site. But it's also good to remember that an accessibility audit takes a look at accessibility from every aspect of the site. So technical implementation, visual design, and the content all together.

So yes. Regardless of whether or not the site was made accessible, the state should still be monitored frequently. Usually, a yearly audit is recommended, but sometimes even more frequent is recommended. It all depends on how much the website is changed.

Accessibility audits are a waste of money because I can never rely on the auditor

This can unfortunately be a bit true. There currently aren't many ways of knowing if an auditor knows what they are doing. And the harsh truth is that some people don't know what they are doing with audits. Heck, even I do a lot better job nowadays than I did three years ago. There just is value to experience and expertise.

Check for accessibility certifications

One possibility is to check for an IAAP certification. In particular, their Web Accessibility Specialist certificate requires at least three years of experience with accessibility. And one way to achieve that experience is with audits. The certificate also requires you to understand the WCAG criteria. So this is something you can look for. And I'm not saying this just because I happen to have that certificate myself. But I've spent a lot of time trying to find certifications and trainings on accessibility so I know there aren't many credible certificates around.

But do also remember that no certificate is mandatory for a specialist. So while a certificate will tell you something, a lack of it might not be as telling.

Ask for the auditor's experience before spending money

You can also just ask how experienced the auditor is. Some companies have specialists/experts join forces with an "experience specialist" (don't know the English word for it, in Finnish we use the word kokemusasiantuntija), e.g. a screen reader user. You can always ask. And if the company won't give you any kind of details willingly, maybe choose someone else. I would be very suspicious of someone trying to hide these kinds of details. Of course, a person's name can sometimes be information that cannot be given, but at least something about their experience should be said.

And at least in the audits I do, I always include my name in the report. That makes possible communications in the future more fluent, should they need some more information from me. Not every company and auditor works the same way, though. I only know what I do.

I can use this third-party solution even if it isn't accessible

Many seem to think that you can use a third-party solution and just write off any accessibility issues it might have. But that is not the case. You are still responsible for the service you provide. So if you know a third-party solution is not accessible, you shouldn't use it. While you can and should report any issues it has to your accessibility statement, those issues would still need fixing just as much as any other problem in your service. And while it can be relieving to try to push some of the responsibility off to someone else, there is also the problem where you cannot influence them to fix the problems.

Is this issue really an issue for someone or is it made up by the rules?

This kind of mindset I see all around. I've heard it from designers, developers, and content creators, as well as from people who aren't working with the digital world. It usually involves some kind of a problem they don't see as meaningful to themselves. It can be color contrast, it can be understandability, it can basically be anything. It all depends on the level of understanding of the person in question. Just try to remember that because you don't understand why something is an issue, doesn't mean it's not an issue.

If an issue is reported, it indeed is an issue for someone. Will it be an issue for 90% of the users? Possibly not. But does it matter if it is an issue for 10% of the users? Of course, it does! Or if it is an issue for 1%? Or even a single user? YES! It is an issue. While I understand the need to prioritize something that might be an issue for the majority of the users, don't forget about the minority. That one single person might be someone who will make your product or service known to their group of friends and family. So if you think about nothing else, do think about the possibility of being able to get more users for whatever it is you offer.

And again, I do hope people will start to focus more on the people having these problems. If one of the people in the minority group was someone close to you, I'm quite sure you'd care more. And this is unfortunately true, we people tend to be selfish creatures. If someone we don't know has an issue, it matters to us less than if someone we know has exactly that same issue. But I have noticed that a lot of people don't just have the knowledge or understanding of how some issues can affect other people. So I've been actively trying to bring up the people behind the rules and requirements. And so far I think it has been working.

Why should I care about the users with disabilities, it's not like they will be able to use my product.

This sounds bad, doesn't it? But still, I've heard it. The motivation is usually the thought of spending more money and feeling like the money will not achieve anything. And yes, depending on the service/product, it might not indeed be for everyone. But the diversity of people with disabilities is very real. Not everyone with a disability is the same. And shouldn't they be allowed to choose for themselves if your offering is for them? If you neglect the needs of people with disabilities, I can guarantee you the consequences will be more far-reaching than you think. You don't think the word spreads about the quality of your offering? You don't think someone without a disability won't act on this information and use some other provider who doesn't ignore/neglect a group of people?

Accessibility is too hard, I can never be good enough

A lot of people feel like accessibility is such a wide topic of things that you always lack in something. And while that can be true, do remember that even one small accessibility improvement can be significant to your users. So just start improving your accessibility step by step. Nobody expects you to be able to get everything right the first time. Communicate your desire to be better in your accessibility statement and just work systematically to improve the issues you have. Your users will appreciate this!

Just keep learning and changing your old ways when you learn what is better for accessibility. Everyone has to start from somewhere. Accessibility is a continuous process, you're never done. And the WCAG requirements are just the minimum, you can always strive for better.

If you have a way to reach your users, you can also ask them for feedback. But do remember that if you request a lot from them, do pay people as well. Don't expect the people with disabilities to help you test and ideate without being compensated for their time. But do remember that the people who have accessibility needs are the people who know what might work best. Just don't forget that all people with disabilities are unique beings as well, for example, if you get an opinion from one person who is blind, they cannot speak for all people who are blind. But it is still a good starting point to get opinions and feedback from your real users. And this should also be something you do frequently, not only once.

Some things for you to think about if you are still unsure of the importance and effect of accessibility

Accessible content is better for non-native speakers. Accessible content doesn't require you to remember all acronyms or technical words. Accessible content doesn't require you to be an expert at a topic to understand the content.

Accessible design is intuitive to use. Accessible design is easy to use regardless of how many times you've used it. Accessible design is better for conditions like having sunshine on your mobile device.

Accessible implementations require less maintenance. Accessible implementations work with a mouse, a keyboard, a screen reader, and other assistive technologies. Accessible implementations also are getting more and more search engine visibility.

And last but not least, Accessibility is just good usability. And good user experience is accessible.

Diablo 4 - a disappointment to the Diablo legacy?

Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:56:29 GMT

I was waiting quite enthusiastically for the release of Diablo 4. As a Diablo 2 sorceress and Frozen Orb lover, I was excited to see that the skill actually looked like something I'd be interested in. Especially since Diablo 3 had a wizard I didn't enjoy one bit and my opinion of the Frozen Orb in Diablo 3 was purely negative, I was happy to finally get my favorite class back.

Alpha and beta - a quick look into how the game might look and feel like

This was one of the first games where I've taken part in an open alpha or beta. I even reported quite a few bugs. The game felt quite fun, though it did have a lot of bugs and issues, but those were to be expected. In hindsight, those bugs probably took the attention away from the other aspects of the game I might not end up enjoying that much. And of course, you couldn't progress far in the game, so you could only play the very beginning. I ended up testing a sorcerer, a rogue, and a necromancer before the launch. All seemed more or less okay to play for the first 20 levels.

One of the funnier bugs I encountered were corpses that kept doing something after dying. I think I have a video somewhere of a wolf wagging its tail after dying. I found that hilarious for some reason.

My initial thoughts after the game launch

When the game launched, I finally got to create my sorcerer. I struggled quite a bit with mana from the very beginning. And to my surprise, it didn't really get that much better later on in the game. But Frozen Orb did feel like a nice skill... apart from the unfortunate fact that it didn't do much damage on its own. So not a really viable option if you like to progress in the game. And that felt a bit sad, especially because they kept telling us we could utilize variating skills and different builds should be viable. But apparently, that didn't apply to my skill of choise.

Once I switched to another build, I started to actually do damage. And I did that every 12 seconds or so while spending the rest waiting for both cooldowns and resources. While it was an improvement to the no damage and wait times, I still felt like I was often just running around waiting for the ability to do anything. And with a sorcerer they designed to be a glass cannon even without said skill... well. If there was even some monster density, I was not really enjoying that downtime.

The game is visually pleasing

It's fun to get to choose what your character looks like. But I did notice that once I found a look I liked, it was hard to create anything else. Though it seems like there are a lot of different style options, it's not that many after you find your favorites. But since Diablo is about killing monsters and not looking at your character, it is absolutely fine that you can't choose between, for example, all the colors possible for the character's hair.

Unfortunately, the amount of transmogs for your gear is a bit limited. A lot of the things look quite similar with small differences in detail. In Diablo 3 there were a lot more different types of looks. But I suspect more of these will come along with season items later on. The color schemes are also a bit limited, which I did find a bit sad. I like my blues and purples in quite specific hues. I would think more coloring options are probably going to come later as well. And again, since this game is more about killing monsters and not about the character itself, this is fine as is. But since we do have the possibility of making our characters look like we want them to, it would be fun to have a place where you could show your character. Standing in town isn't really it, at least for me. In Diablo 2 we had the lobby where you'd often spend some time checking the gear on other players and fantasizing about becoming as powerful. Something that would achieve that would be fun.

The visuals in general look really nice. I did spend some time looking around while standing at the edge of cliffs. Impressive. Visually this game is to my liking.

The player skills are often too visible, though, and they will cover enemy skills or traps and such on the ground. And if you play with a friend, even though the skills of the other player are not as visible as yours, they will still cover too much. I don't know about you, but I don't think it's really all that fun to walk into a room and explode immediately because you can't see the freeze or poison on the ground behind all the skills already up in the room by your allies. Don't get me wrong, the skills look really nice. But to me, the looks aren't worth dying for.

The devs have used a lot of excuses for a party limit of four and one of the excuses has been the skill visuals. A lot of players would probably be fine with playing with less visible and impressive skill visuals and instead get more players to their party. But it was the same already in Diablo 3.

The music is as good as always if not even better

I usually mute game music at some point and start listening to my other music. But with Diablo 4 I haven't yet felt the slightest urge to stop listening to the game music. But to me, the Diablo franchise has always been about great quality music. The music brings a lot to the game.

A big pain in my butt was the low monster density

The game has had real issues with monster density. Blizzard kept bringing up reasons why there couldn't be a higher density but they seemed made up. And to be honest... if they weren't, something had clearly gone wrong with the game design. The whole point of a Diablo game is to kill monsters and a lot of them. So to find yourself struggling to find something to kill felt really weird.

The density is ridiculously low from time to time. And while a lot of the viable character builds have been based on killing monsters constantly to be able to keep their resources up... it felt absolutely crushing to run through several empty rooms. Especially without access to any kind of resource replenishing bottles, some of the game features seem mostly like punishments. Or then you'd be on such a high level that you just couldn't leave a single monster standing... and all you got was one monster in one room and then another in the next while you were waiting for your cooldowns. Hopefully, they will bring the monster density way up. They have already made some improvements, but I hope they will keep at it because it's not nearly good enough at this point.

The story is good and interesting

The story in itself was enjoyable, I liked it. The quests had quite a bit of running around, which I didn't particularly enjoy. But during the first playthrough, it was okay because then I got to take a better look at the scenery and all the visuals. But I wouldn't want to do it again. The monster density was often really low during the story as well, and it reduced the feeling of playing a Diablo franchise ARPG. Many boss fights were boringly long. And I talked about this with other people, who all felt the same. It didn't feel like we were doing nearly enough damage.

One of the most captivating things for me in the game was the voice actor for Lorath, Ralph Ineson. Something in the voice and expressions just really brought the character to life. While I had no problems with the other voice actors in the game, Ralph Ineson just stood out for me.

Another thing I did not enjoy much was the side quests. They didn't feel like they were deepening the story much. And the running around I already saw with the main quests felt worse, for many quests you had to teleport and run around the map and get something from one person to another. If there would have been a lot of monsters it would have been more tolerable. But no, just running around on the horse and bumping into a lot of things. Then there were drops from specific monsters or corpses I had to hunt from specific locations... where both said corpses or monsters were extremely scarce and I spent a lot of time just trying to get the drops. But luckily some quests were interesting and fun even. But I noticed skipping some conversations just because the questing felt so boring and I just wanted to get the quests done and move on.

Gathering renown has already seen some changes to it - and for a good reason

There are a few ways to get renown. Renown is used to improve your character - you get more potion slots and you get more room for obols etc. One of the ways to collect renown is to touch the Lilith statues that you see on the map. Those bring also some slight buffs to your characters in addition to the renown. Then there are map visibility, side quests, and dungeons. Originally the thought was that you'd collect them all each season. And within a season, all characters would share Lilith statues and map visibility but the others you'd collect on all characters. Collecting the renown is not really all that fun. You have to do a lot of things you wouldn't necessarily otherwise do just to get renown. Running regular dungeons you don't need the rewards for felt quite boring. But still, I'd rather run the dungeons than do side quests.

Luckily they have now made changes to the renown so that you don't have to grind it every season. First, they announced map visibility and Lilith statues wouldn't have to be collected again. But now the whole renown will get transferred from season to season if I understood correctly. A good change. While collecting renown as an idea is interesting and fun, doing the same unrewarding things all over again is not the way I want to spend my gaming time. In order for that approach to work for me, I'd like to see more activity possibilities and some rotation in the activities or something like that.

Having a mount to run with is fun - for short distances from time to time

The mount seemed like a fun idea. And while it is faster to run with the horse than on foot... if I wanted to spend my time riding a horse, I would choose another type of game. Getting off your mount was punished with a time penalty which was fine for the cases where you had monsters to force you down. But if I would either by choice or accident toggle the mount, I would have to wait 10 seconds to get on again. Really annoying, especially when the reason for getting down in the first place was to go up or down a cliff with no way around it. Then I'd get to stand at the top or bottom for a while before getting on my journey again. Nothing that is too annoying, but still from time to time it really disrupted my gameplay.

But having the mount is still a good thing. You get from one place to another faster. And the mounts looked fun, especially when there were bugs with the visuals. For example, I'd sometimes see only the rider and the horse was invisible. Quite a silly thing to see going past you.

They've already also changed some things for the horse riding. It gets stuck less, and you can get through barricades. For some reason, they thought it would be a fun way to play that you get constantly interrupted by barricades and battle the two monsters behind the barricade before you can continue towards whatever it was you were doing. Sometimes I felt like the developers weren't really gamers themselves.

The end game is boring

There are several end-game activities. There are the world bosses, there are nightmare dungeons, and of course, you can run other things like legion events as well. Personally, I'm not too fond of the world bosses. The amount of players is limited to 12 if I'm not mistaken. And while I understand why they did it, it was still quite different from the hype they originally span around the world bosses.

The nightmare dungeons are fine for the most part. But what was absolutely ridiculous at launch was the fact that they expected you to run to each nightmare dungeon you spawned. Luckily they did hear the complaints and added a teleport feature with an update. But we still teleport to the entrance instead of inside the dungeon, which feels a bit stupid. But better than running around on the horse!

I play mostly with my fiancé and we noticed quite quickly that if we built our characters according to a nice sounding build, some of our skills would completely mess the other player's skills up. For example, a lot of sorcerer builds rely on the monsters being in a specific place - whether it be near you or a certain width apart. And just as I'm launching all my skills, my fiancé would launch his and the monsters would move. And my damage would not happen. And the problem of course is the over 10-second wait until I can attack properly again. One of my builds had the unique Raiment of the Infinite, which pulled the monsters to me when I teleported. Imagine a melee character running and planning to attack a monster... that got teleported away just before you hit it. And yeah, technically we could have chosen a different skill. But then the build would not work solo as well. So we often felt punished for trying to play together. We did make changes and avoid using specific skills when playing together but again this feels like something we shouldn't have to struggle with.

I really hope they can improve the end-game because, in its current state, I don't like it very much. And for a game that is all about grinding that is not a good thing.

The first season is almost over already

In general, I dislike the speed the seasons are planned to change. I'd like each season to last longer. I hope they will change that later too or then I'll likely start skipping seasons so I can also play some other games.

To me, it felt a bit weird that they already brought a mechanic to alter the character's powers in the first season. While it did bring me a build I could enjoy more than the one I used at launch, I still would have expected these types of things to come later in the seasons.

The season story felt a bit painful to play through, and I didn't really particularly enjoy the season dungeons either. The story didn't really feel like part of the game story to me. I'm not even exactly sure why that was, but it felt painted on. Many of the season dungeons were quite far away from the teleports so again I had to run around on the horse. And they got too easy in the later end game so grinding them for the season items later in the game wasn't that great of an experience.

I originally started the season with a rogue, as did my fiancé. And our builds were absolutely incompatible. Playing was a pain in the ass. Neither of us really enjoyed playing the class, so after a while, I went back to my sorcerer and he went back to a druid, which he had experimented on after launch. Our builds weren't that compatible with those classes either, but at least it got a bit better. And I even found a build that didn't struggle as much with mana! And which wasn't unpleasant to play with. But still. I want my Frozen Orb! Blizzard skill isn't it, and neither definitely is Ice Shards. I haven't given a go at fire or lighting sorcerer but that is because by default I prefer ice skills. And I did find it fun that we used Mortal Kombat character names and tried to get them to look at least in some way like the MK characters. We had Kitana and Mileena and then later on Sindel and Raiden.

Will I keep playing?

I've talked with a few of my friends who all feel the same way about the game. I might even have the most positive opinion about the game. But this game is honestly not better than Diablo 2. And it isn't really about the nostalgia in Diablo 2. I still enjoy the game a lot. Besides, in that game, I finally can create a sorceress with a fully upgraded Frozen Orb due to the cold charm! Oh, it was so fun to play with the orber sorceress. But back to Diablo 4. I feel like if this wasn't a Diablo game, I wouldn't have played it even this long. And my friends agree. Some already went back to Diablo 2 and some still occasionally play Diablo 4. But nobody is constantly playing Diablo 4. Diablo 3 had a lot more activity from my friend group.

I'm not completely giving up on the game yet, but I did decide not to push the first-season character to level 100. There are better ways of spending my time, to be completely honest.

The second season has already been announced. It has a vampire-like theme... and I love me some vampires. So I'll probably give the new season to go. Especially because they are also bringing some more quality of life improvements. Such as having the gems not use the stash spaces from other gear. Maybe I'll finally get to create a Frozen Orb build that is viable in the end game. However, it is probably more likely that I'll need to experiment with the other elements instead. But in any case, I do think I might just keep playing the sorcerer instead of trying the other classes. At least for the time being.

I hope they will bring a companion to the game at some point. Kind of like in Diablo 3. Someone who would collect the money spawning behind my back after I've already moved on. Running back to collect a little bit of money is quite annoying in the long run.

All in all, I'm glad that Blizzard seems to be listening to the players, at least somewhat. But it seems like they focus a lot of effort on new players and not their regular player base. And while I can understand trying to grow the player base with newcomers, punishing long-time Diablo players because you want to try to lure new players with the BS features in some modern games... not fun. The old Diablo community is after all the players who will play the games year after year after year. Well, might not if this is the direction the game will move into. But Diablo 4 can still be a great game if the developers just make good decisions and bring out the features the players want. That remains to be seen. And I'm sure a good compromise can be made that will work for many types of players. It's all about just making the right kinds of compromises and listening carefully to the players.

Accessibility site 2.0 is live and kicking

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 10:09:18 GMT

The first version of the new renewal project is out. It was a bit touch-and-go with the search but luckily I now have at least a somewhat nicely working search on the site.

The site has a lot of new content

I have already written quite a lot of new content for the site. A lot of it was to support me in studying the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) materials. But I've also wanted to extend the content on the site for a while now.

I decided also to test how ChatGPT could support the writing process. It was quite fun to ask ChatGPT to help out with summarising some of the content. Quite a useful tool, especially if you already know the topic you're asking it to provide content for. Because it did write some things that really weren't about directly the topic itself. But all in all, I'd say that tools like these will probably make it a bit easier to gather information on a lot of topics. Hopefully, they will also ensure the tools will be accessible to everyone.

I already have some more plans for content changes on the site. I'll just need to keep writing. But just like the accessibility process is never ready, neither is content creation.

Frontend changes

The look and feel are quite the same as it was before. A few tweaks here and there. I also added some accessibility blog highlights to the front page of the English language version to get the content I write to this blog shown on the site as well. That will help me stay motivated to write more accessibility content for the blog.

I also decided to add a back-to-the-top link to the footer. I didn't want to have it float so that it doesn't cover the texts. But I thought to provide one at the end of the page so people can hop back to the top.

I also redesigned the blockquote element. It's a bit more visible as well as easier to understand. And I added a simple type of info box element that accepts just text. It's basically just some text placed more visually. I'm not sure how useful that element will be in the future. But hopefully, it will bring out some new ideas in me.

Backend changes

The biggest change happened on the backend side. The site is now running Strapi. The CKEditor5 I'm running is custom. I wanted two, and only two, language options for the language tool. Otherwise, it would have been a pain to use in the long run. Unfortunately at the moment, it's not possible to tweak those settings with the Strapi plugin. Hopefully in the future, at least there was some discussion about that already. No surprise that I'm not the only one interested in tweaking the list of languages. Scrolling through and trying to find the correct language is really annoying in the long run.

Strapi supports language versions quite nicely. Setting it up felt more or less painless. Content input also feels quite nice. At least I'm not crying for Drupal UIs yet. Though it might help that I have CKEditor in both Drupal and Strapi. The WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) experience is a huge part of the whole editor experience.

For the menu, I used a plugin called UI Navigation. There were some settings I didn't understand at all. But the functionality seems quite nice and I was able to have both buttons and links in the menu relatively easily. Basically, I have a lot of wrapper element buttons and internal source links. The plugin supports external links out of the box as well.

Site search

The search was a bit of a struggle. First figuring out which search to use. Originally I was planning to use Elasticsearch but then we looked into Meilisearch and it looked quite promising.

Meilisearch doesn't currently have proper language support. But I figured my site can live with getting both languages in the language results for now. I could delete those other languages on the frontend but then I'd have to change how the language menu works on the search pages and I really don't want that. But I'll have to see how usable the search will be.

Hosting

The backend is self-hosted. I'm lucky to have a partner who likes to host my things. Well, honestly I doubt he likes it but at least he does it.

The frontend is hosted on Netlify like my other frontends are. I was originally going to go with Vercel but I just wasn't feeling it for some reason. I really like the UI and user experience in Netlify.

Did the project go smoothly?

For the most part, yes. It did take me some time to get more comfortable with TypeScript on the frontend side. Maybe not the easiest thing to hop from a quick basics course directly into my code. But I did get everything working in the end, and no 'any' definitions in the main code! So it's something at least already at this point. A lot of things to improve, like always. But at least there will be more things to do.

On the backend side we ran into a problem we were not expecting. I use SQLite locally because it was quick to set up. We were excited when we noticed that the database can be exported and imported. So no worries about setting a different setup for the production. Well, almost. While the export and import did work, I soon noticed that every single element in the menu element got scrambled. Languages and page references were all over the place. The one thing that I really, really, really didn't want to do again had to be done manually. Well, luckily it went quite smoothly, I have quite a bit of experience on the content editing side, after all. But it was a bit of a pain, especially because I had to fix the whole language version menu at once. Saving was only possible once all errors were fixed. But luckily I didn't have to fix both languages at once. While I was fixing the menu, my fiancé also found an issue mentioning this behavior in the plugin issue queue. So hopefully at least at some point in the future someone else can avoid this. Because while the menu element works well, it's not the lightest to alter.

What's next?

From the frontend side, I'll need to test and see how I feel about the menu in the long run. And I'll need to see if it supports more sections or if I'll need to change things around. I'll also need to think if I want to make the site more static.

Hopefully, the backend side doesn't need too many changes. I'd like to be able to concentrate more on the content updates for a while.

I will also need to follow up on the Meilisearch feature progress. I really hope language support will arrive sooner or later. When that comes, I'll probably look into adding a search bar with search suggestions. I'd like to look into the accessibility of those features.

Content-wise there will be some smaller and some bigger changes. I'm also planning to add more content in general. If you have any requests for content, please let me know and I'll do my best to have that content available for you!

WCAG 2.2 current status

Tue, 16 May 2023 15:53:26 GMT

The WCAG 2.2 release got pushed again. This time they are planning for a Q3 release. There has been a couple of changes since the last time I wrote about this topic. If you haven't been following the criteria, it might be useful for you to check my previous blog post on this topic. I won't list all the criteria here, only the changes that have been added since my previous post.

They decided to go back on one of the WCAG 2.1 changes. 2.4.7 Focus Visible was changed back to level AA so this criterion will remain as it is in WCAG 2.1. The only change to WCAG 2.1 will be the removal of 4.1.1 Parsing.

Changes to the new criteria for 2.2

They changed the numbering for 2.4.11, 2.4.12, and 2.4.13. And the same was done for 3.3.7, 3.3.8, and 3.3.9. In both these cases, the AAA-level criteria are now the last on the list. This is how the criteria have been also in the earlier versions.

Criteria 2.5.7 Dragging Movements and 3.2.6 Consistent Help remain as they have been.

2.4.11 and 2.4.12 Focus obscured - minimum and enhanced

2.4.11 is now Focus Not Obscured (Minimum), which is the AA level criterion. And 2.4.12 is Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced), which is the AAA level criterion. The criteria themselves are still the same as they were before.

2.4.13 Focus appearance

2.4.13 Focus Appearance is the criterion that was earlier at risk. The criteria will be kept, but it will be an AAA-level criterion. They've also changed the criterion description quite a bit.

When the keyboard focus indicator is visible, an area of the focus indicator meets all the following:
is at least as large as the area of a 2 CSS pixel thick perimeter of the unfocused component or sub-component, and
has a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 between the same pixels in the focused and unfocused states
Exceptions:
The focus indicator is determined by the user agent and cannot be adjusted by the author, or
The focus indicator and the indicator's background color are not modified by the author.

There are also three notes attached, which should provide some more context. The criterion is now much more understandable to me. I kind of feel bad for not getting more requirements for the focus indicator on A or AA level. But at least we now get more requirements for the AAA level. And I will be recommending all my clients to meet this criterion regardless of what they must follow. The clearer and better visibility we can have in the focus styles of an element, the easier it is to perceive.

2.5.8 Target size (Minimum)

They changed the exceptions for spacing and inline. The criterion is now as follows:

The size of the target for pointer inputs is at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, except where:
Spacing: Undersized targets (those less than 24 by 24 CSS pixels) are positioned so that if a 24 CSS pixel diameter circle is centered on the bounding box of each, the circles do not intersect another target or the circle for another undersized target;
Equivalent: The function can be achieved through a different control on the same page that meets this criterion;
Inline: The target is in a sentence or its size is otherwise constrained by the line-height of non-target text;
User agent control: The size of the target is determined by the user agent and is not modified by the author;
Essential: A particular presentation of the target is essential or is legally required for the information being conveyed.

So they've added a bit more information for those two exceptions. Good changes! The clearer the criteria are, the easier they are to follow and test.

3.3.7 Redundant Entry

This criterion was 3.3.9 before. The criterion wasn't changed, just the number.

3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum)

This criterion was 3.3.7 in the previous version. They also added the word minimum to the criterion name. The content of the criterion remains the same.

3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced)

This criterion was 3.3.8 in the previous version. The content of the criterion remains the same.

My accessibility info site renewal project

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 14:48:34 GMT

I've been wondering about renewing my accessibility site on and off for a while now. The accessibility site is a quite basic Drupal project - a Drupal 9 site with a custom Drupal theme. Since I now have a single Drupal site for the backend of both my portfolio and blog, I've been thinking if I should add the accessibility content to that Drupal and get rid of the extra work that comes with maintaining two separate Drupal sites.

Defining the hopes and dreams for the new site

Before diving into the tech changes I first stopped to think about the content. I now have it in two languages and the first menu level is getting quite long in both language versions. I've also collected quite a few new content ideas, some of which don't really fit under any of the existing menu items. So a structure renewal was needed as well.

Then I stopped to think about the content types. I currently have two types in use, basic content, and demos. I also have already started working on a glossary section, for which I have a separate content type. I also have a content type for the blog highlights, but those I've been planning to get directly from the blog itself in the future.

Planning the new site structure

While I worked with my previous employer, site structure Excel sheets were a very common thing. They were used for both defining the site structure as well as defining needed redirects. So based on the good memories with these, I decided to use a sheet to define the structure I wanted.

I wanted to keep a lot of the structure but add new content wrapper topics. The old "Accessibility" menu became "Accessibility fundamentals". Under that one, I added "The basics" where pretty much all the content from the original menu will be located in the future. This allowed me to add accessibility laws easily under the umbrella term of accessibility fundamentals.

I decided to get rid of the old resources section and spread the content to multiple places instead.

Digging deeper into the content types

The basic content is a very simple content type with only a base WYSIWYG editor for the body, some meta tags, and another WYSIWYG editor for the source material. So this could be easily created with any backend option currently available.

The demo content type is slightly more complex. I'd need to add code to the page, because I'd need to add classes and HTML. But if the backend doesn't allow this, I can always create all the demo content on the frontend side. Doesn't really make a difference. On some level, it might even be easier to have all the demo stuff, styles, and all, on the front end and not scattered.

A new content type I've been planning for is the glossary. I'm planning to add some common and maybe some less common terms to the site to help users navigate the terminology of everything related to accessibility. For this, I don't need much. Basically a title and some content. Possibility to add links. So should be relatively easily doable on any setup.

Tech choices

There are currently a lot of technologies to choose from for both the backend and the front end. While I love that there are so many options to choose from, the downside is also that there are so many options to choose from. I also always like to choose something that might at least on some level be relevant to my work. Well, technically, you could say any web technology is related to my work. But you know what I mean.

Backend option one: Combining my Drupal sites into a single, even larger site

The idea of having all my content in one Drupal has its advantages. Lesser maintenance requirements, for one. And the familiarity of a CMS (Content Management System) I know and love is always comforting.

The first small hiccup is that both my portfolio and my blog only exist in English and I intend to keep them that way. My accessibility site is available in both Finnish and English. So I would need to add language features to the Drupal site. This is not a huge thing, since Drupal has good language capabilities. But it would still be extra complexity for the site.

Then I also started to think about what benefits does Drupal actually bring to this site. Not much, to be honest. A familiar user interface that I prefer to many others is probably the biggest benefit. But as long as I have a backend I can use without getting angry at the world, I'm good. The site is currently so simple in structure that the best Drupal features (the best in my opinion, of course) aren't even used much on the site.

So... if I won't benefit from Drupal that much, should I maybe investigate some other approaches? I decided to do just that.

Backend option two: Using a new backend for the accessibility website

There are a lot of new technologies appearing all the time. So getting to know a new technology is always an option on my mind. I've been reading a lot about various headless CMSs.

I'm not looking into the paid options because my projects are just for fun. There are a lot of CMSs that offer a free tier as well as the paid tier, which gives me quite a few options.

Testing out one of the new technologies sounded like a fun idea. It has also been a while since I've last done something like that, so it felt like the right time to be a bit more experimental.

Frontend options

The idea of going headless has been on my table for a while now. Partly because I want to practice accessible searches in headless projects. The real options for me were Gatsby and Next.js. Both I have some experience with, and both I enjoy using. Knowledge of both can likely benefit me at work as well. So neither would be a bad option to pick.

What I wanted to add to the front end was TypeScript. I've finally started learning about it, so this hopefully is a good project to practice it with. And since I have this specific look and feel on my sites, I might do the same for my other sites as well later on.

What did I end up choosing?

For the backend, I first decided to take a look at Payload CMS. It looks decent, is created with TypeScript, and seems to meet all my basic needs. I wasn't too happy with their site causing me nausea because of all the animations. But hey, why not respect the reduced motion setting when you can ignore it? When I started to test it, I found it was lacking in documentation, or even more specifically, examples. In the end, I decided to give Payload CMS developers more time to finish up the product.

I had already a few years ago taken a look at Strapi. At that time it was really unstable and felt unfinished. But I decided to take a new look at it. And it seemed like a good fit for me this time. So I will use Strapi as the backend.

For the front end, I ended up choosing Next.js because that is what my portfolio and blog run as well. I hope major updates will be easier to handle when everything uses the same technology. I decided that I didn't want too many new things for this project, so sticking to a familiar front end would be good for me. I can always do yet another rework project later if I want to also try some new technology for the front end.

Let's see how the project goes. Hopefully, I'll get to report my first thoughts on Strapi after a successful project.

WCAG 2.2 is on the way, what comes with it?

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 09:58:57 GMT

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 version has been delayed a couple of times. But now the plan is to release it in April 2023. WCAG 2.2 currently has two versions. WCAG 2.2 W3C Candidate Recommendation Snaphot which was approved for publication in January 2023. And Editor's draft of WCAG 2.2 which may include more recent proposed changes that aren't yet all approved.

According to W3C WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative), the main purpose of the Candidate Recommendation is to ensure that the standard can be implemented. It is stable, but it might change based on implementation experience. They mention one specific criterion which is at risk and might not be included in the final publication. So let's see what the final publication will look like, hopefully in April.

WCAG 2.2 won't be likely immediately added as the accessibility guideline to follow. But I recommend starting to take these into account already. That way you can prepare beforehand and won't have to work on changes later with a tighter deadline. If you have been paying attention to accessibility already, it might very well be that you already have taken care of all these.

Changes from WCAG 2.1 to WCAG 2.2

There will be two changes from WCAG 2.1. The level of criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible will be changed from level AA to level A in WCAG 2.2. When most sites aim to conform to Level AA, this brings no real difference to those sites. In those cases, both A and AA levels still need to be complied with.

Criterion 4.1.1 Parsing is obsolete and it will be completely removed in WCAG 2.2. The criterion has received quite a lot of feedback of being quite confusing and people have been interpreting it in different ways. So I'm not really surprised to see it go. But this doesn't mean that code validity and quality aren't still important! So continue to make sure all ID attributes are unique and that you use HTML attributes and elements correctly. Quality code will still make a difference, regardless of the user's abilities and skills.

Additions in WCAG 2.2

WCAG draft currently shows 9 new success criteria from WCAG 2.1.

Guideline 2.4 Navigable

2.4.11. Focus Appearance - Level AA

This is the criterion that WAI mentions is at risk and might not make the final publication. I don't have any facts but it might be due to the criterion not being the easiest to understand. I might be completely wrong though, so don't take my word for it. But aim to have your focus styles clear and visible.

When the keyboard focus indicator is visible, one or both of the following are true:
The entire focus indicator meets all the following:
encloses the user interface component or sub-component that is focused, and
has a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 between the same pixels in the focused and unfocused states, and
has a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 against adjacent non-focus-indicator colors.
An area of the focus indicator meets all the following:
is at least as large as the area of a 1 CSS pixel thick perimeter of the unfocused component or sub-component, or is at least as large as a 4 CSS pixel thick line along the shortest side of the minimum bounding box of the unfocused component or sub-component, and
has a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 between the same pixels in the focused and unfocused states, and
has a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 against adjacent non-focus-indicator colors, or is no thinner than 2 CSS pixels.
Exceptions:
The focus indicator is determined by the user agent and cannot be adjusted by the author, or
The focus indicator and the indicator's background color are not modified by the author.

So really not the clearest criterion. A lot of stuff to take care of. If you use the default focus style from the browsers, you should be fine. Or if you use a clearly visible border that is solid and at least 1px thick, you should be fine. The criterion tries to allow different types of borders, for example, those that have a border on only one side of the element. If you want to use those, I can already say that the thicker they are, the more likely they are to already pass the criterion. But in this one you can see some minimum requirements, assuming this criterion doesn't get removed. But good tips even if the criterion would get removed.

2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) - Level AA

This criterion aims to help people visually see the focused items. Sometimes there can be things like pop-up banners blocking the focused item. This criterion does allow part of the focused item to be behind some other element.

When a user interface component receives keyboard focus, the component is not entirely hidden due to author-created content.

2.4.13 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) - Level AAA

This is the enhanced version of the previous criterion. This one requires that all focused elements are fully visible. No author-created content can be on top of it.

When a user interface component receives keyboard focus, no part of the focus indicator is hidden by author-created content.

Guideline 2.5 Input Modalities

2.5.7 Dragging Movements - Level AA

All functionality that uses a dragging movement for operation can be achieved 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.

There is a note that this applies to web content that interprets pointer actions. The requirement doesn't apply to actions that are required to operate the user agent or assistive technology.

2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) - Level AA

This criterion aims to help people who have difficulties hitting small targets, for example, people with tremors.

The size of the target for pointer inputs is at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, except where:
Spacing: The target offset is at least 24 CSS pixels to every adjacent target;
Equivalent: The function can be achieved through a different control on the same page that has an area of at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels;
Inline: The target is in a sentence or block of text;
User agent control: The size of the target is determined by the user agent and is not modified by the author;
Essential: A particular presentation of the target is essential or is legally required for the information being conveyed.

Guideline 3.2 Predictable

3.2.6 Consistent Help - Level A

This criterion aims to help people with cognitive disabilities. If the help tools on a web page are always in a different place, it will require a lot of effort from people to find them. Consistency is key.

If a web page contains any of the following help mechanisms, and those mechanisms are repeated on multiple web pages within a set of web pages, they occur in the same relative order to other page content, unless a change is initiated by the user:
Human contact details;
Human contact mechanism;
Self-help option;
A fully automated contact mechanism.

They have a note that says that access to help mechanisms can be provided directly on the page or it can be provided via a direct link to a different page containing the information.

Guideline 3.3 Input Assistance

3.3.7 Accessible Authentication - Level AA

This criterion aims to help people with cognitive disabilities. Not allowing users to use password managers can be really bad for the users. And not preventing the use of password managers is enough to pass this criterion.

A cognitive function test (such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle) is not required for any step in an authentication process unless that step provides at least one of the following:
Alternative: Another authentication method that does not rely on a cognitive function test.
Mechanism: A mechanism is available to assist the user in completing the cognitive function test.
Object Recognition: The cognitive function test is to recognize objects.
Personal Content The cognitive function test is to identify non-text content the user provided to the website.

3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (No Exception) - Level AAA

This criterion is stricter than the previous one. This basically removes two of the allowed options. But allowing your users to use their password managers is enough for this one as well.

A cognitive function test (such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle) is not required for any step in an authentication process unless that step provides at least one of the following:
Alternative: Another authentication method that does not rely on a cognitive function test.
Mechanism: A mechanism is available to assist the user in completing the cognitive function test.

3.3.9 Redundant Entry - Level A

The aim of this criterion is to help users so they don't have to re-type information they've already entered. This can reduce the cognitive load by quite a bit.

Information previously entered by or provided to the user that is required to be entered again in the same process is either:
auto-populated, or
available for the user to select.
Except when:
re-entering the information is essential,
the information is required to ensure the security of the content, or
previously entered information is no longer valid.

My thoughts on WCAG 2.2

I think the new WCAG version brings good additions. And when looked at from my developer point of view, I already aim to do those in my daily work. I really recommend getting started on having these handled in your websites and applications, just remember that these can still change before the final publication.

More information on WCAG 2.2:

What's new in WCAG 2.2 Draft on the WAI website
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 on W3C

Scratching that sim itch with games by Two Point Studios

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 17:27:15 GMT

When I was younger, I played quite a lot of Theme Park with a friend. We always had so much fun playing. Then I expanded to Theme Hospital. I loved that game as well. After those two I haven't felt the same feeling with other similar games. But then, lots and lots of years later, a game called Two Point Hospital was released. And oh joy! I really enjoyed the game. Now the game also has a sibling called Two Point Campus. I love that game as well. Enough to have bought all the level expansions to both games.

The games are very alike; they are of the same genre and type after all. In both, you have levels where you need to level up by collecting stars. For each star, you will have a different set of goals to achieve. They can be something like spending or earning money, training your staff, or making sure your staff is happy enough. From each star, you will earn rewards and unlock new levels.

The games are also humorous. There are always some funny intercom announcements going on. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy the games so much. Both the games also provide radio with music, but that I've turned off so I can listen to whatever I like. But I kept the intercom announcements on. I still find them funny even though I've heard them many times.

And funnily enough, both the games also scratch my fantasy itch. Two Point Hospital has werewolves and Two Point Campus has witches. I wasn't expecting either of those, so those were quite funny surprises.

Two Point Hospital

There is an interesting variation of different types of challenges. Not all levels are the same. And with the expansions came new illnesses to cure and new hospitals to build.

You will hire doctors, nurses, assistants, and janitors. All have some traits that can be positive or negative. There are litterers, hangry people, unhygienic people, and so on.

Two Point Campus

There are a lot of different types of courses. Usually, you will have a specific course to start with but when you raise your campus' level, you can upgrade your course or add new ones. And when you add new ones, you can choose whatever you like. But it's great that certain courses have some kind of synergy with each other. Not all courses use gyms, for example.

You will hire teachers, assistants, and janitors. And like in the other game, they similarly have traits.

Which game is better?

If I compare just the game content, I think I prefer Two Point Campus. There are just so many fun things going on. But that's just slightly. I do enjoy both of the games very much.

But on the UI side, I do prefer Two Point Hospital. I've not gotten used to the UI in Two Point Campus, but in the beginning, I was really bummed out by the difference. Now that I've played only Two Point Campus for a while, I don't mind the UI.

If you enjoy these types of simulation games, I can definitely recommend both games. And I really hope they develop more games like these. Or at least some more levels for me to play in the existing games.

My journey with Web Accessibility Specialist certification

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 20:12:19 GMT

When I started learning about accessibility, I quickly decided it was something I'd want in my career. I encountered IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals) while searching for training and certification options. I noticed they have a few accessibility certificates. And also that the more technical WAS (Web accessibility specialist) required at least 3 years of accessibility experience. So this could be a long-term professional goal.

While working at my previous company, I did ask if they would sponsor me to get the certification. And at least at the time the company didn't see enough value in it and declined. As the exam is quite expensive, at that time I decided to leave it be for now. But after switching to my current employer, I brought up the certification possibility. We looked into the topic and noticed that the certification did pop up every now and again in our sales cases. So the certification could indeed be useful. I was quite happy that they didn't at least shut down the idea. And then last year when it was time to apply for a training budget, I decided to apply for the certification. As an extra positive, the company also paid me to take a preparation course I had offered to pay for myself.

Preparing for the exam

Preparing for the exam proved to be quite hard for me. I did take Deque's WAS preparation course. The course helped me study with a clear content structure. Definitely recommend the course if you are planning to take the exam. It's not required to be able to pass the exam, nor does it guarantee that you pass. And it's good to know that you won't have access to the course materials forever. But at least for me, the course provided some needed structure. I used the prep course section tests to review the study topics a couple of times after finishing the course. So I definitely got value from the course.

After finishing the prep course, I had difficulties focusing on studying. Partly because I felt like I knew the topics. But partly because I wasn't sure on what level I needed to know things. For example, should I know how to use JAWS, and if so, on what level? I didn't want to exhaust myself trying to learn every possible tidbit that I wouldn't need in my daily work. I also am the type of person who will want to remake a component done wrong instead of trying to patch it. So I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the ways to use all the ARIA properties. That was also because I know that if I need them at my work, I will still read through the specs and documentation before using them. So no need to remember everything by heart. I used the body of knowledge provided by IAAP quite a lot in my studies. It also provided some kind of structure.

Having these difficulties also caused me quite a bit of extra stress. Parts of my brain didn't agree on what needed to happen, and it was quite hard. I'm fortunate enough to have a good group of supportive people around me who helped me to try to cope with myself.

Applying to take the exam

I decided to take the exam at the last exam slot of the year to give myself some extra time to prepare. Applying for the exam required some work, but the required steps were quite clear. I decided against explaining my experience in detail and sent a CV with the application. But my CV wasn't detailed enough, and they asked me for clarifications of my knowledge and experience. This step really made me doubt myself and I even asked them if they thought I should instead wait for another year before taking the exam. I had pretty much then decided that they will reject me and I'll spend some more time learning more. But then they went and approved my exam. This sent me into a bit of a spiral, to be honest. I was super insecure about myself at that moment and I worried that they made a mistake and that I'd made a mistake. People reminded me that this will be a learning experience in any case. If I succeed, it will be great that I succeed. But if I fail, this will teach me the level of the questions in the exam and will help me prepare better for the next time. In theory, such good advice, but my brain didn't accept it immediately. I have a strong fear of failure and it took me a while to stop spiraling with my worries and start focusing on what should happen next.

After getting approved for the exam, all I needed to do was to book the actual exam slot. That was easy and soon I had the authorization code ready for the exam. Then all I needed to do was actually take the exam.

The exam

I had read quite a bit about the remote exam option. I felt like it could have been less stressful to me as an idea, but the setups and everything seemed super stressful. Especially after reading about other people's experiences with the remote exam, I decided to go take the exam at a dedicated company.

And I'm so glad I did. The experience there was pleasant and even quite calming. The person who took us in was helpful, friendly, and kind. I felt immediately safe there. When I sat in front of the computer and the exam, I was surprisingly calm. I was able to work on the exam and didn't really have much anxiety at all.

The exam by default is two hours, but I could ask for an extra hour because I'm not a native English speaker. I decided to ask for the extra time, mostly to have some extra recovery time if I went into a panic during the exam. Luckily that didn't happen and the language in the test wasn't as complicated as I expected. I'm always quite fast to finish exams and this was no exception. I went through the exam twice and was out in under two hours.

Life after the exam

After finishing the exam began maybe the most annoying time. Waiting for the results of the exam. I started questioning myself about the answers I gave and all the usual things. But luckily I got over that quite quickly as I assumed that I will not pass and I'll just then retake the exam and learn more of those details I needed to. The results were said to come around four to six weeks from the exam. But the results came already a little over three weeks after the exam. And to my relief, the email congratulated me on passing the exam. Did I pass with as great a score as I would have liked? No. But to be satisfied with the score, it would have needed to be 100%, as I have a bad habit of putting way too high expectations on myself. But I was still happy with the result because of everything mentioned above in this post. And now I can proudly call myself a certified accessibility professional.

I'm now just waiting to get my name on the list of WAS-certified professionals. I will also receive a badge. What I nice way to start the new year! Now I just need to start working on maintaining my certificate.

Styling interactive elements

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 17:55:42 GMT

When you have an element you can interact with, you need to let your users know. Usually, we do this by adding a hover and a focus style to the element.

The styles can be as subtle or bold as you like. As long as the styles are accessible.

Hover

Having a hover style for an element is not required by the accessibility guidelines. But if you create one, then it needs to follow the WCAG success criteria.

I've heard arguments where people have said that nobody needs the hover styles. Their reasoning has usually been that people with screen readers benefit nothing from those. Which is true. But one group who enjoy understandable hover styles are mouse users who can see. To be as inclusive as you can, don't neglect any of your users. I recommend always creating hover styles. That way your users will have an easier time knowing what elements they can interact with. Otherwise, they might waste time wondering how your site works.

Focus

For focus styles, there are already a few requirements in WCAG 2.1 but there are more to come in WCAG 2.2.

The focus style needs to be visible. Never completely hide a focus style from any element.

Some people recommend leaving the focus style as the browser default. But note that the browser default styles vary. Some of those don't have enough contrast with all backgrounds. So if you want to sure your focus is visible enough, create your own.

How to design a good hover or focus

Your hover and focus should not be identical. It's very possible that you have focused on one element but are hovering over another. It can get confusing if the styles are identical. But even identical styles are better than no styles.

A focus is by default defined by an outline. An outline is a quite nice way of defining a focus style, but I like to make it more visible than any browser default.

When choosing your colors, make sure there is enough contrast on any background. Depending on your background colors, you might need to define several focus colors. Also, remember that your color should not be the only visual cue.

If you have an outline or a border or an underline, think about the CSS unit you define the thickness width. If you use pixels, the thickness will remain the same if the text content is zoomed in. If you use a scalable unit like rem, the thickness will also scale when zoomed. The latter might often be better for your users. If the user needs to zoom the text, they probably like the interactivity cues being more visible.

Some ideas for styles for interactive elements

Links

Links are usually underlined by default. When you hover over a link you can, for example, make the underline bolder. Then you can also change the color if you want. You can also add another border. An acceptable solution is also to remove the underline on hover. I would rather make the border different than completely remove it. On focus, you can use an outline. The focus style can also contain the hover styles if that makes sense.

Also, remember that no other element on the page should look like a link. Sometimes I've seen implementations where the link looks like the headings. And then it will become a guessing game to figure out which of those are links. Because in one of these cases some of the headings were actually links and some not. But they looked identical. So pay attention to the link default styles as well. Try to have them as clear as possible.

Buttons

Often buttons will have a hover style that will flip the colors of the button. This is still relying on the color, so do add another visual cue as well. You can, for example, use a border. Focus usually contains an outline but it's not mandatory. Also, a quite interesting effect is to change the button rounding on focus.

Stray - a game that delivered on my hype expectations

Sun, 06 Nov 2022 10:08:04 GMT

When Stray was announced, I was immediately excited. I love cats and I love games, so what could be better than a cat game?

Are animals actually interested in the game?

Before I started playing, I had read that a lot of animals are confused by or interested in the game. And the same happened when we first started the game. The game begins with multiple cats moving and meowing. This really caught Osiris' attention. He was intensely watching the TV and even went closer to the screen to see what is going on and who the cats are. Lumia couldn't have cared less, she was sleeping or minding her own business in another room. After the main character was the only cat on the screen and there was no constant meowing, Osiris didn't seem that interested anymore. He often watches anything on the TV with us, so he was usually still around. Just not paying so much attention to the game. Clearly, the cat sounds and mannerisms are realistic.

What is the game like?

I love the game. The story is very well written. I was instantly hooked, and I couldn't wait to learn more. If you are not familiar with the story, it isn't the most positive one, but a great story nonetheless. The writers did an amazing job. I've rarely encountered such a fantastic story.

The main character is also super cute. I laughed so hard at a couple of the cat things they added to the game. I had a blast randomly dropping stuff and putting the cat's head in paper bags. But my favorite was definitely when the cat wore a harness for the first time. That is exactly how Osiris behaved when we first tried on a harness for him. They managed to portray a cat really well.

I also enjoyed the scenery. The game looks fantastic. The controls aren't super complicated, which was also a plus. I like being able to do the basic functions without much thought.

What I did not enjoy so much were the Zurks. Super stressful for me. And don't get me wrong... they were excellent for the game, but just not so pleasant for me. I would have been happy just to be able to walk around without any enemies, to be honest. The game is just so beautiful and I completely fell in love with the main character.

If you haven't played it yet, I recommend trying it out. The game has received very positive feedback, so I'm not the only one loving it. I intend to replay it at least one more time so I can get all the achievements. I like getting 100% of the achievements in a game whenever I can. I just also really liked playing the game. I'll just wait a bit so I don't remember the story so well before giving it another go. I really hope they make more games like this.

The importance of headings

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 15:58:47 GMT

When we talk about accessibility, there often is a lot of discussion about headings. Some are more adamant about making sure the headings follow good logic. And others are wondering why we are making such a big deal of the issue. I thought I'd try to shed some light on the topic.

What is the point of headings?

The first step to understanding the importance of headings is to know what they are for. The point of headings is to create a structure for your pages. They are like an index of a book.

Many screen reader users check all the headings on a page to see the page structure. They can also navigate from one heading to another. An illogical heading structure might make it almost impossible to understand the relationships.

When to use headings?

You should use headings when they represent the following content. You should choose the heading level based on the content. Don't choose a heading size because it looks a certain way.

Don't use headings to visually emphasize text. If you do that, it can get very confusing for people. If you want to achieve that, use styles and not heading tags.

Use as many headings as your content needs. While there only should be one H1 level heading, the amount for the other levels is not restricted in any way.

How to write good headings?

Headings should be short and concise. And the heading should describe the content of the following section. Good headings will make the content more glanceable.

WCAG criterion 2.4.6 (level AA) is about headings and labels. It specifies that both headings and labels should describe a topic or purpose. Criterion 2.4.10 (level AAA) is about section headings.

Skipping heading levels

Skipping heading levels is not recommended. It might not look so bad from a visual point of view. But for assistive technology users, there is a huge difference. Skipping heading levels currently only gives a warning from WCAG criteria. If you want to be as accessible as possible, try to avoid skipping heading levels whenever you can.

You should plan your page heading structure before you actually create the content. Doing this might even make it easier to write the actual content. Your thoughts might be better organized and you can maintain a logical heading structure much easier.

Not skipping heading levels sounds very simple. And in theory, it is. But in reality, it depends on the site. If you are the only one working on the site, it's relatively easy to handle logical heading levels. Because you can affect everything. But when we introduce more people to the mix, it can become more difficult.

Working with company-level websites

Talking about company-level business, there usually are even more people involved. You might have a design team creating the page layouts. Then you will have a developer team handling the site-building. The designers and developers might even be from different companies. Their interactions would depend on the project. The more communication, the better the results will be. Someone will definitely need to have the big picture in mind. And then added to designers and developers you have all the people inputting the content.

Make sure to ensure there is enough communication in every phase of the project. Accessible content requires everyone to work together. It isn't enough if only some team in the project thinks about heading accessibility. Usually, the content editors don't have access to every heading on the site. Some headings might be automated by the website implementation. And that requires both designers and developers to see the big picture.

Tips for designers

When designing a page layout, keep in mind the page structure of similar pages. To avoid problems with headings on the designs, you need to be aware of the whole site. On the development side, things are usually created as components. The components are then reused in as many places as possible. Understanding some of the development processes might also prove useful.

Try not to make every layout as different as possible. Instead, aim for unity. This is my advice on the design as a whole. Though it does have a huge impact on heading design as well.

One tip is also to avoid having headings with capital letters. Capital letter words are slower to read for everyone. But for people with Dyslexia, the issue is much worse.

Also, keep in mind that both the developers and the content editors might not understand the way you designed the pages. So try to ensure everyone understands how you've planned the content structure.

Tips for developers

When you get a layout with some headings defined, check them all. If you notice any illogical heading levels, let the designer know. That way the problems can be fixed before the implementation starts.

If you notice a heading without any content after it, let the designer know. Don't implement an element with a weird semantic structure without at least questioning the design first.

When you start creating the elements, don't combine too different elements. Sometimes a similar element should be used with an H2 heading and sometimes with an H3. If only one of those is used, the level will be wrong in the second use case. And that's not great.

I recommend installing a browser tool that allows you to check the page heading levels. You can also check headings using a screen reader, for example, VoiceOver or NVDA.

Tips for content editors

Get to know the editor's experience of the website. Get familiar with how you can structure the content. You should be able to create accessible content. If you for any reason can't, let the right people know. It's important to fix any blockers.

If you are not sure how you should use some of the elements available, it's good to ask about those as well. If you didn't receive any user instructions, it might be a good thing to ask if instructions could be provided for you. That way you can make sure you don't create inaccessible content just because you are using an element wrong.

Make sure to get the heading levels of any automatically created headings that might affect your content.

Accessibility knowledge

Another important thing is to ensure everyone involved is aware enough of accessibility. Accessibility training might prove useful. At our company, we offer accessibility training for our clients who want to learn more. There are, of course, a lot of companies that offer these kinds of trainings. There also is a lot of good, free accessibility information online.

Lord Winklebottom Investigates - a game found in Kickstarter

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 19:44:12 GMT

If you haven't heard about this game, it's a point-and-click adventure game that was recently released. It was originally started on Kickstarter. It's a murder mystery that takes place in the 1920s. When we first saw the Kickstarter page, it became obvious that we needed to back that game. And actually, now my fiancé's name is in the game credits which was fun to see.

It was also super interesting to follow the game's development process. You can still see how the graphics have changed if you check out the Kickstarter page and compare it to the released game. At least to my eyes, they made many good visual improvements. And on that page, there is also a lot more information about the game and the developer.

Visuals, character design, and all the good stuff

The game looks charming and I really enjoy the design style. I also love that all the characters are different animals. The main characters are Lord Winklebottom, who is a giraffe, and Doctor Frumple, who is a hippo. Just seeing Lord Winklebottom's cute face makes me instantly happier. I might have kept the game graphics open while writing this post.

The voice acting was fantastic and I like how each of the characters has their own thing. You could see that the characters had been well planned. There is also a lot of humor in the dialogue, I've laughed out loud more than once.

Game difficulty

The game itself isn't super complicated, though we did have a little bit of trouble in a couple of spots. But it wasn't frustratingly hard, at least for us. It took us about 6 hours to play it through. I've read some comments that the game doesn't have enough detective work, but for me, the game was just great. The game scratched the point-and-click itch perfectly. I will need to replay the story to get the remaining achievements, but I also just want to hear the characters again. My favorite part of the game was definitely the characters.

If you enjoy point-and-click games, I definitely recommend getting to know Lord Winklebottom and all the other amazing characters. And based on the game reviews on Steam, I'm not the only one who recommends the game.

Cat exercise wheel

Sun, 10 Apr 2022 15:06:44 GMT

I've had several people ask me what a cat wheel is. Well, it's very similar to a hamster wheel, just quite a bit larger. There are a lot of different kinds of wheels on the market. I had been following a Finnish retailer that sells the Ferris cat wheel.

The idea of a cat wheel is to give your cat a place where they can run. They can run as long as they want and as fast as they want.

If you plan to get a wheel for your cat, make sure the wheel is large enough. If the wheel is less than 120cm in diameter, there is a risk for your cat to hurt their back. Also when looking at the options, try to make sure the wheel is secure and safe for a cat to use. They've at least thought about these things with the Ferris wheel.

Out thought process for the wheel

The first thing we thought about was if we thought our cats would actually use it. I had a feeling that Osiris might be interested since he is an active cat. The wheel is in no way cheap, so we thought quite long if we would get one or not. Because we knew that if we bought one and cats weren't interested, the wheel might not be easy to sell. It also wasn't very easy to get one, since the retailer would only get some a few times a year and the wheel quickly sold out. I followed the retailer for a couple of years.

At the end of last year, I noticed that they were getting the next shipment soon. We had a long discussion about whether we should get the wheel. At the time we had Nappi and Elli with us and one of our pro points was that Elli and Osiris might be able to burn some energy on the wheel. In the end, we decided to risk it and buy the wheel. We would try to sell it if the cats just wouldn't want to use it.

Getting the wheel

The wheel itself was nicely packaged and the parts were of good quality. The wheel was relatively easy to put together. I really did not understand how big the wheel actually is, even though I had the numbers. But luckily the wheel is not super heavy so we were able to put it together in a different room where it would be used.

Cats getting used to the wheel

While Nappi and Elli were here, only Elli was even slightly interested in the wheel. We even offered to give it to their new home when they left, but the wheel is so big that the new home didn't want it.

After Nappi and Elli left and things were getting back to normal, we started to try to get Lumia and Osiris interested in the wheel. Treats were given if one would walk even a few steps. Osiris went nuts on the treats and he would just run around without understanding what we wanted him to do. Lumia seemed to get it quite quickly.

Lumia started to walk with the treats. Osiris still would only take a few steps. He seemed to get bored. We were already talking about how it will be ok if this is the way we get them to use the wheel. But then Lumia started to walk on the wheel on her own. She would just calmly walk for a while. We always got her treats if she did this, occasionally she wouldn't even want the treats but would just continue walking. I was so happy. Then after a while, Lumia started to run on the wheel. Or she would hop quite high on the wheel, and then run. Osiris would still just walk if we would ask him to and he got treats.

But then a month ago, Osiris just suddenly went to the wheel and started walking on his own. He was meowing to us so we would come to watch. He did receive treats for this change of behavior. And since that day, he's been walking and running on the wheel daily. He runs faster on the wheel than he can run on our floors. Which does mean his muscles should improve. His sprints are quite brief, but he does them several times a day.

But now we have a small problem. They both want to be on the wheel. A few times they have tried to go in the same direction together, but it gets quickly chaotic. The wheel is so wide that two cats fit there, so that's not an issue. They've both had this habit of jumping in the other direction than the other is going in. The issue is not so big if Lumia does it because she is lighter than Osiris. But when Osiris does it, well then it's a 5kg cat vs a 3kg cat. So basically Lumia gets quite abruptly interrupted and will usually try to quickly hop off before she flies off.

Both cats know now how to jump higher on the wheel, hang on to the sides and then start running when they are at the bottom of the wheel. Lumia did this at first, but Osiris has clearly been watching and learning because he now does it as well. And now Osiris has figured out that he can actually jump multiple times and then start running during his zoomies.

The good and the bad about the wheel

Well, as I mentioned, the wheel is quite big. The diameter is 130cm, and it has wheels at the bottom that make it a bit higher. Our apartment really doesn't have a proper space for the wheel, currently, it is sitting in the middle of our living room.

While the wheel is quite quiet, our apartment building is quite old, and sound travels a lot. So I assume our neighbors know when Osiris is running. But since our neighbors do have their parties and all kinds of other noises, I think Osiris occasionally running is fine. The cats rarely use the wheel during quiet time.

The cats like to claw the mats on the wheel, which gets some mat pieces around the house, but that isn't really even an inconvenience. At some point, we do need to buy another set of mat pieces for the wheel.

But other than that, I have nothing slightly bad to say. I'm really glad we bought the wheel since the cats seem to like it a lot. I'm hoping this will improve Osiris' muscles even further. He's already been getting praise at the vet for having really visible muscles. How he's developed his muscles is basically our climbing wall. During his zoomies, he occasionally runs and jumps up and down the climbing wall. That is another thing I can definitely recommend for any cat home.

Ghost of Tsushima - a game filled with samurai action and animals

Sat, 12 Feb 2022 19:52:18 GMT

I finally got around to playing Ghost of Tsushima. I won't go into much detail about this game, since there are a lot of reviews and materials on the internet. I'll focus more on my feelings about the game.

The game is beautiful, and the music suits the game well. I find it quite funny that you can play the flute in the game. At first, I had no idea that it actually has a function. But you can apparently change the weather a certain way, depending on which tune you play.

The sceneries are impressive. The only negative thing I have to say about that is the fact that there is a lot of hopping around high mountains. It hurts my stomach to hop around and see just how high we are... or even worse and actually fail the jump and see the ground closing in. I don't like heights in games or in real life.

I like how the battle mechanics aren't overly complicated. There are a lot of options, stances, weapons, and such to choose from for each battle. But the implementation of the mechanics is excellent. At least for me, it is fairly easy to use. After a while you will actually remember how you change each of the weapon types... until then it's trial and error.

The story of the game is, of course, a little dark, can't be a super happy story with this subject. But the story is really good. I enjoyed both the main story and also the side stories. I've yet to try the legends mode.

If you haven't yet tried out the game, I cannot recommend it enough. I can also recommend another game series from SuckerPunch, Infamous. I really love those games.

My favorite weapon

I really like using the bows. Especially the heavy arrows, there is something really satisfying about those. You get the feeling that they are heavy and powerful.

I also like the Kunai. They're fun to throw around. Apart from those I rarely use the other weapon options, apart from the swords. I've only used the bombs when there has been a bonus objective from using them.

My favorite thing to do, though is to be a sneaky thief and assassinate people. Kind of reminds me of another game series I love, Batman. Sneaking behind buildings and various elements to try to find the perfect spots is the most fun.

Animals in the game

I had known about the foxes before starting to play the game. I obviously love the Inari shrines. There's nothing better than to follow a cute fox to the shrines. And occasionally you even get to pet the foxes. Adorable. I always like to be able to interact with animals in the game.

But when I got on the Iki island, oh joy! More animals to pet! And not just foxes!

And then there is of course the horse. I've noticed that if I take any other horse than my own, I always end up getting it killed one way or the other. I actually noticed a similar pattern in Red Dead Redemption 2. Whenever I would change from the default horse to a more expensive one, someone killed the horse.

The horse and my stupid humor

I named my horse Kage. It means shadow, and I like all things relating to shadows and darkness. After a while of playing it became obvious that the pronunciation is similar to how the basic rally Finnish pronunciation of Nicolas Cage's surname. And this made it possible for me and my fiancé to have our stupid humor while we play. Good horse, Kage quickly became Good Nicolas Cage. Really stupid. But for us, it has provided a lot of laughter.

WCAG 2.5.3 - Label in name

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 19:49:59 GMT

For user interface components with labels that include text or images of text, the name contains the text that is presented visually.
WCAG 2.5.3

What does all of this mean?

This success criterion only applies when the element contains text or images of text — it does not apply to an image of an arrow with no text.

WCAG's definition of an element's label is the following: text or other component with a text alternative that is presented to a user to identify a component within Web content. It defines name as text by which software can identify a component within Web content to the user. These definitions are almost identical, but there is one important difference. Label is presented to the user and name is presented to software.

For most HTML elements, the WCAG name and label should be the same. For example, if a link has the text "Apply now" (Apply now), this text will serve as both the label (what a sighted user sees) and name (what a screen reader user would hear).

Finding the accessible name is not always straightforward, especially in one of these three scenarios:

For images, you must check the alternative text to discover the accessible name.
If an element has multiple bits of information competing for the accessible name, you must determine what rises to the top. This is especially common for form controls.
If an element uses ARIA labels (aria-label or aria-labelledby), this will override any other contender for an accessible name.

Sufficient techniques listed are including the text of the visible label as part of the accessible name and matching the accessible name to the visible label.

You can add more information to the link with an aria-label. But you need to have the words of the visible label in the same order they are in the visible text. The wording must be identical. You cannot, for example, have a link text "This is my awesome link text" and then have an aria-label "This is my link text". There are three clear failures for this criterion:

Failure due to the accessible name not containing the visible label text
The accessible name contains the visible label text, but the words of the visible label are not in the same order as they are in the visible label text.
The accessible name contains the visible label text, but one or more other words are interspersed in the label.

So pay attention to this, there are a lot of failures for this around the web. And do remember that add ARIA only if you need it. If the text content is clear enough, you don't need any ARIA.

Some say that you need to start with the visible text but that actually is not required. As long as the accessible name contains the visible text, the criterion passes. But it is best practice to start with the visible text, so I recommend doing it whenever possible.

Who benefits from this?

The users who benefit from this the most are speech-input users and text-to-speech users. If you have a button that visually says "Search" and then the name says "Find", the speech input user can have a lot of difficulties activating that button. Or at least it will be unnecessarily confusing.

Where this criterion is often failed?

On many websites, you see these card-like elements that link to another page. You often have at least an image and a title. A date, a category, or even some brief description text can also be present. How these kinds of elements are often created, is a link element with all the contents inside of it. And here you get the problem. If you have a lot of content inside the link, the screen reader experience will be less than optimal.

When a developer becomes acquainted with ARIA, many times they try to solve this by adding a more simple version of the content with ARIA. But this is a problem because then the visual label does not match the accessible name. So don't do this. Even if it seems like the most user-friendly approach. If you need to comply with WCAG A level, you need to pay attention to this. I've seen many people try to be clever with ARIA and unfortunately, often it completely fails.

On this blog in the blog listings, I have these kinds of elements as links to each blog post. I have an image, a date, a category, and a title inside the link. I use images only as decorative ones so I don't have alt texts in them. But in my opinion, all the other information is useful for the users. But having the screen reader announce the links like "Flexbox gap December 04, 2021 tech" sounds a bit silly. What I did was add extra content for the screen readers. It reads "Flexbox gap on December 04, 2021, in category tech". Which is a bit better, at least in my opinion. And this doesn't fail the criterion. But this will not be the best solution for all these kinds of content, especially when there are multiple language versions in play.

One other approach I've seen is to add separate links - one in the image, one in the title, and so on. This is not optimal either. You shouldn't link with different kinds of links to the same page. At least in this case only show one link for the screen readers. But for keyboard users, this will still be quite annoying because you would have to tab through multiple links just to get to the next card. So you would need to handle that as well. I don't really recommend this approach, you will very easily make browsing harder for your users.

What I would recommend is to try to design these elements so that you can have only one link in them, which describes the content well enough. If it is a link to another page on your site, often the title is enough. Many users react better to CTA (call to action) elements such as button-like links. If this is your case, then consider having the link only in the button. But try to make sure the buttons are something more descriptive than "read more". Avoid trying to be too clever with these card-like elements, and always remember to test your solutions against this criterion.

It is always best to have user testing. I recommend testing for both usability and accessibility. The real users show you the most realistic results. For developers, I recommend always doing proper technical design. With proper design and planning, you can avoid many of the issues.

Knowing when it is time to give up

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 19:48:11 GMT

We've been having the cat living situation testing for two months now. And today morning, Nappi attacked Osiris without provocation. This isn't the first time she has done or attempted this, so it's been a known risk. But now it has become clear to me that this arrangement will not work. Luckily no physical damage was afflicted on either one of them during the conflict. At least there aren't any visible wounds or anything like that. The cats also seem mentally ok, which is good. But it is only a matter of time before something similar could happen with Lumia. And Lumia cannot defend herself. She has almost no normal cat skills. So I'm quite certain she would get hurt if Nappi decided to attack her.

I know some cats take months, or even years, to start accepting each other. I would have been able to handle that if Nappi wasn't this aggressive. I can't in good conscience risk Lumia's and Oriris' wellbeing. There is no certainty that Nappi would ever change her behavior.

Part of the issue has been that Nappi and Elli have had pretty much no discipline. They do know a water spray, but that is not very optimal when Lumia and Osiris don't. Nappi and Elli don't understand verbal commands at all and Elli doesn't even recognize her name. With Osiris, I can get him to stop anything by either calling his name or telling him something like "go away". But that doesn't help much when Osiris is the one in trouble and trying to get away from the newcomers. And with Lumia the situation is pretty much the same as with Osiris, she will obey if we tell her to. She may not like it, but she will obey. Luckily Lumia doesn't need much discipline, she is a very well-behaved kitty cat. Elli and Nappi have also been practicing, and improving, though. For example, if Elli is trying to stalk Osiris, I usually start saying her name in a commanding way. She has started to understand that this means her and that she is doing something she is not supposed to. Because after a few times of hearing her name she does walk away from the situation. But does she know it's her name? I don't think so. :D My brother taught her to come to the human when the human pants, so I don't know if Elli thinks that sound is her name. :D I still can't get over the fact that if I pant at Elli, she comes running to me.

Nappi quite clearly wants to be the only cat in the house. That has been an easy determination based on her behavior here. She doesn't want Elli close to her most of the time. She has learned to tolerate Elli during their years together, but she does dominate Elli. And boy does she send a lot of mixed signals. One moment she is asking Elli to come to play with her. And if Elli does come close even a few seconds later, Nappi suddenly hisses and spits at Elli. This behavior, of course, scared Lumia and Osiris a lot. They are used to only hiss to each other if necessary. Basically, it was always Lumia hissing at Osiris when Osiris was playing too roughly.

Elli was almost completely ok living here. She and Osiris had started to find their rules of conduct. Osiris hasn't been getting that upset when Elli occasionally managed to jump on him. Just a quick hiss and a possible meow, and Elli backed away. Elli seemed to be a bit jealous of Lumia trying to come to get the humans' attention. Occasionally she hissed at Lumia when they were both close to the humans. But Lumia mostly was a bit confused and walked away. No huge drama in that, and I'm sure this behavior we could have gotten rid of sooner or later.

Lumia has been curious about the other two cats, and she even got quite close with Elli. But Nappi is either afraid of Lumia or simple just hates her. I'm not entirely sure which, possibly even both. Nappi has tried to prevent Lumia from moving around our apartment. She has tried to block a room with a litter box. Luckily we have one in every room so no issue because of that. And she has also tried to block access to the kitchen where the food is. This behavior might have become a blocker for this experiment at some point. I was just hoping that this behavior would have improved after Nappi got more used to Lumia. They haven't even seen each other on some days. That might make it harder for Nappi to get familiar with Lumia's presence.

Osiris has been getting quite tolerant towards Elli. And he has let Nappi get past him without any hisses quite often. But knowing Osiris, he is still very afraid of the newcomers. And when he gets too scared, he will hiss and meow. Luckily that is all he ever does, I haven't needed to worry about him attacking the newcomers. And even if he gets attacked, he has only been vocal and trying to run away. A part of it might be that he doesn't have any teeth left. It might make him uncomfortable in scary situations. Assuming he understands he doesn't have teeth. We've been wondering about whether he gets it or not. I'm not that well acquainted with how cats think and what they can understand about themselves. But even if he is quite harmless towards the others, he clearly hasn't been happy about the newcomers.

At this point, I know that the separation will be the best solution for Nappi, Osiris, and Lumia. Of Elli, I'm not 100% sure. But she will adapt. As long as she has a human that will give her a lot of attention, I don't think she minds that much what else happens around her. This solution will ensure that all the cats are safe and that is the most important thing here.

I would have really wanted this to work out. But I have to be a responsible cat owner and put a stop to a too risky situation. It would have been different if we were living in a large house. There it would likely have been possible to have separate living areas with little interaction. But in our relatively small apartment, there is always some level of interaction, it just cannot be avoided. I really love Elli and Nappi, they are both so lovely to us humans. They've brought me so much joy over these two months. It saddens me to see them go, but I also wish for them to have the best life they can have, and unfortunately, that is not here. Luckily a new home was found for Elli and Nappi already, they leave next weekend so I still have a week with them.

Extending our family

Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:46:52 GMT

I recently ended up in a situation where I had to decide whether I would take my brother's two cats as part of our family. Another option was to risk never seeing the cats again. It would have also been a sadder situation for my brother if the cats had to go to a stranger. Well, you already know the answer. Truth be told, there wasn't even a decision to be made, it was obvious that we would try to see if the cats get along. So we started planning for the arrival of Elli and Nappi.

Cat personality analysis of sorts

We knew each of the cats has a different personality. This needed to be taken into account before introducing them. We also needed to ensure that there are enough safe spaces for all the cats. Well, that was no issue because we have many places for the cats to go to in each room.

We also bought two Feliway sets. I don't know if those do any good but some people say they help. Better to have all the tools.

The cats are quite similar pairs. One more social one, and one that needs their own space. Osiris and Elli are very social. Lumia and Nappi like their personal space. We thought it is likely that Lumia and Nappi will take their own places. Osiris together with Elli might be the first ones to start getting to know one another.

The arrival

My brother brought the cats on a Monday evening. He stayed the night so that we could handle any possible conflicts without risks to any cat's health. But luckily we didn't have any fights!

Lumia was very interested in the belongings of the two new friends before the cats came inside. She always wants to smell things. But Elli and Nappi terrified her. All the cats were afraid of each other. And since everyone was on edge, there was a lot of hissing going around. Lumia tried to escape most of the time. Luckily she slept next to us like she always does, though she did come to me for extra safety. She usually sleeps on my leg with her back turned to me. She is most likely watching Osiris, who sleeps usually between my legs. But this time she came to rest on my chest face towards me and she actually slept there. My heart melted because she never does that. The moment she put her head down on my chest I knew that she needed support.

Nappi was diagnosed with asthma and received medication the day she came here. So for her, the change has been quite rough. New place, new cats, new medicine (that she needs to take twice a day). But she has been a trooper. She took less than an hour to find a place in the apartment to sleep. She has been investigating all the rooms, but she hasn't seemed all that troubled about her new home. As long as she gets food, some pets, social distance from her furry friends, and a place to sleep seem to be enough for her. She dislikes the medicine and will try to run away when she thinks it's time for it. Luckily she has been taught that she doesn't get to have her way, so she is easy to handle. Some protest meows but that's usually it.

Elli was also quite content with the apartment. But she was hissing and growling the most of all the cats in the beginning. She didn't like Nappi either, so hisses all around. Every day she has been getting calmer and calmer. After four days she has been trying to get closer to the cat friends. I suppose she misses having a friend to sleep on top of. She has also completely accepted us, humans, though she is a bit of a jealous type. But she has to learn to share the attention.

Osiris was panicky, he even hissed at Lumia during the first day. I was happy he stopped doing that because that caused Lumia very much anxiety. Osiris has been curious about the new friends, but things often get too intense and he runs away.

For the first night, we closed the door and had the cats on separate sides so all cats could get some sleep. Unfortunately, both Elli and Osiris hate closed doors. We spent the night listening to them trying to open the door. We had prepared for it by adding some weight next to the door so they couldn't get it open. But at least the cats did get some sleep.

The first week contained a lot of hissing, but less and less every day. We didn't feel the need to separate the cats for the nights. Lumia and Osiris slept in our bed, Elli and Nappi have been choosing different beds. I assume they are testing them all to see which they like best.

All the cats have been eating well. Though Lumia has a few times received her portions in another room to ensure she actually eats. But various combinations of the cats have been eating in the same room during each of the meals. Sometimes things get scary for some of them. But then we try to calm things down and give food to them in different rooms if necessary.

Candy time seems to be a quite nice way to have them closer to each other. And by candy, I mean dry-frozen chicken, which is something they all love. Elli and Osiris have almost bumped into each other because they are both so greedy. Nappi and Lumia are calmer, and one or the other might not be always present with the others. I'd say things have been going well so far, especially since there has only been noise and no violence.

Two weeks later

The cats still aren't all friends. They can eat their food most of the time close to each other, and candy time is probably the easiest. Elli and Osiris are kind of friends, Elli has been trying to play with Osiris. But Osiris is still often afraid.

They tolerate each other better already and seem to be getting warmer towards each other.

Nappi has also started to slightly show interest in the cat activities. But most of the time she is by herself. She comes to get me when she wants food or pets.

Elli is seemingly herself. She plays with toys by herself. She also takes part in any playing happening around the apartment. She has been trying to get both Nappi and Osiris to play with her. And sometimes she just zooms around the apartment. She's a little cutie.

I hope they will soon be good friends. Or at least stop all the hissing. It would be fun to see them running around the apartment together.