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Eric Bailey

Eric Bailey
Don’t forget to localize your icons Former United States president and war criminal George W. Bush gave a speech in Australia, directing...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
Former United States president and war criminal George W. Bush gave a speech in Australia, directing a v-for-victory hand gesture at the assembled crowd. It wasn’t received the way he intended. What he failed to realize is that this gesture means a lot of different things to a...
Eric Bailey
“Evergreen” Does Not Mean Immediately Available
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
GitHub’s updated Commits page and the interactive list component GitHub has updated the page template used to list Commits on a repository. Central to this...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
GitHub has updated the page template used to list Commits on a repository. Central to this experience is an interactive list component that I was responsible for architecting. This work was done alongside input from James Scholes, whose guidance was instrumental to the effort’s...
Eric Bailey
Stanislav Petrov A lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces prevented the end of human civilization on...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
A lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces prevented the end of human civilization on September 26th, 1983. His name was Stanislav Petrov. Protocol dictated that the Soviet Union would retaliate against any nuclear strikes sent by the United States. This was a policy...
Eric Bailey
Accessibility preference settings, information architecture, and internalized ableism I have a lightning talk I deliver internally at my job. It is intentionally delivered to...
5 months ago
13
5 months ago
I have a lightning talk I deliver internally at my job. It is intentionally delivered to non-accessibility practitioners, so mainly engineers, designers, project managers, and product folk. The talk is about exploring macOS' Accessibility system preferences. It points out...
Eric Bailey
Heading elements have been added to Project board views to improve screen reader page navigation
5 months ago
Eric Bailey
Making content-aware components using CSS’ <code>:has()</code>, grid, and quantity queries
4 months ago
Eric Bailey
Myth: Alternate text and automation
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Evaluating overlay-adjacent accessibility products I get asked about my opinion on overlay-adjacent accessibility products with enough frequency that I...
6 days ago
10
6 days ago
I get asked about my opinion on overlay-adjacent accessibility products with enough frequency that I thought it could be helpful to write about it. There’s a category of third party products out there that are almost, but not quite an accessibility overlay. By this I mean that...
Eric Bailey
Don't Use The Placeholder Attribute
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
How to build a cloud-hosted accessibility testing Windows computer using Amazon WorkSpaces
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Formative posts Blogs are good at communicating what you’re thinking about a specific topic, but not so great at the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Blogs are good at communicating what you’re thinking about a specific topic, but not so great at the larger framework of how someone came to be in the headspace that lead to the posts they share. Because of that, I’ve set up a formative posts page. This page is a list of blog...
Eric Bailey
slashbot
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
These three links spell out a big uh oh for where things are headed when placed in context with each... Google Is the Only Search Engine That Works on Reddit Now Thanks to AI Deal - 404 Media Thread by...
6 months ago
9
6 months ago
Google Is the Only Search Engine That Works on Reddit Now Thanks to AI Deal - 404 Media Thread by stillorangecrushed - Thread Reader App AI models fed AI-generated data quickly spew nonsense - Nature
Eric Bailey
The Importance of Heading Levels for Assistive Technology
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
The optics of pair programming If you are not familiar, pair programming (pairing) is the practice of collaborating directly with...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
If you are not familiar, pair programming (pairing) is the practice of collaborating directly with another person to work on a problem. You’ll often hear it in development contexts, but I've also encountered it with design. In the Before Times, we paired by walking over to a...
Eric Bailey
My Mastodon strategy I know, I know. Yet another “how to Mastodon” post. That said, I feel like I’ve finally gotten at...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
I know, I know. Yet another “how to Mastodon” post. That said, I feel like I’ve finally gotten at least a semblance of traction on making my Mastodon feed worthwhile. Reader, it was not easy. I should also point out that I was incredibly invested in Twitter for staying on top of...
Eric Bailey
Improving The Accessibility Of Your Markdown
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Universal Design: 11 Practical Tips to Make Your Sites and Apps More Accessible
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Make technology work for you, not the other way around
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Saying thank you Things are in a really bad place right now. It is difficult to think of any aspect of the world that...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
Things are in a really bad place right now. It is difficult to think of any aspect of the world that isn’t being strangled by malignant forces. This includes the web. It's been a long time since the altruistic early web—putting content out there for the its own sake. The web...
Eric Bailey
Focus Management and Inert
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
A perceived contradiction to internalize when working on design systems Components are simultaneously both too restrictive and also not constrained enough.
11 months ago
Eric Bailey
A year at GitHub I took a job at GitHub a year ago today. On good days, I help to improve the accessibility of its...
a year ago
9
a year ago
I took a job at GitHub a year ago today. On good days, I help to improve the accessibility of its design system. The hope here is that the work done there eventually makes its way to the site itself. It still feels surreal to have this job. I still vividly remember learning that...
Eric Bailey
The lawnmower button As the press deadline approached closer and closer, the man became more and more exasperated....
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
As the press deadline approached closer and closer, the man became more and more exasperated. Eventually, he wound up pacing in my cubicle, watching me frantically click on things. With the press running in less than an hour, he blurted out something that completely threw...
Eric Bailey
How to not make a résumé in React I’ve seen a fair share of tutorial links floating around in newsletters and Twitter and the like...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
I’ve seen a fair share of tutorial links floating around in newsletters and Twitter and the like recently. They all promise the same thing, namely how to use React to create a résumé. I mean, I get it. It’s important to have something to build towards when learning a new skill,...
Eric Bailey
Accessibility annotation kits only annotate An uncomfortable truth is that the vast majority of access-related issues are created in the design...
a year ago
9
a year ago
An uncomfortable truth is that the vast majority of access-related issues are created in the design phase. Accessibility annotation kits help tackle this problem, and in doing so lower the downstream issues that would be created without their presence. This is to say that I...
Eric Bailey
The five types of people who produce inaccessible code There are roughly five types of people you’ll meet doing accessibility development work. They...
a year ago
9
a year ago
There are roughly five types of people you’ll meet doing accessibility development work. They are: People who create inaccessible code, but do not realize they are doing so. People who create inaccessible code and realize they are doing so, but do not know how to fix it. People...
Eric Bailey
An introduction to macOS Head Pointer
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
All the user-facing states I find myself needing a reference like this more often than not lately. So, here’s a blog acting as...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I find myself needing a reference like this more often than not lately. So, here’s a blog acting as augmented memory—I’ll update it as I encounter more user-facing states in the wild. What user-facing state is User-facing state is what someone experiences when they interact with...
Eric Bailey
Windows High Contrast Mode, Forced Colors Mode And CSS Custom Properties
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
a11y-syntax-highlighting has been updated I created the a11y-syntax-highlighting library seven years ago, forked from xiaozi’s...
5 months ago
8
5 months ago
I created the a11y-syntax-highlighting library seven years ago, forked from xiaozi’s solarized-prism-theme for PrismJS. To not bury the lede, the new update: Supports Forced Colors mode, Is encapsulated in a Cascade Layer, Uses Custom Properties, Groups its selectors using the...
Eric Bailey
I doubled-down on RSS Twitter is currently a lot like one of those spiral coin drop wishing wells you encounter at the...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Twitter is currently a lot like one of those spiral coin drop wishing wells you encounter at the mall. The quarter that is its imminent demise is revolving faster and faster and will probably drop out of sight sooner than later. Part of mourning the communities I once had there...
Eric Bailey
How to Lead Better User Interviews
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Improving the User Experience of IoT Firmware Updates
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Getting To The Bottom Of Minimum WCAG-Conformant Interactive Element Size
7 months ago
Eric Bailey
To subset or not subset fonts One of the niche things you can do to improve the performance on your website or web app is to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
One of the niche things you can do to improve the performance on your website or web app is to subset your fonts. If you are not familiar, subsetting is the act of removing glyphs and other associated information from a font file. You can cherrypick individual glyphs, as well as...
Eric Bailey
How to make an ineffective 404 page 404 pages are what a server will show you if you request something that isn’t there. Another way to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
404 pages are what a server will show you if you request something that isn’t there. Another way to say this: 404s are a last-ditch effort to help visitors get what they want if a webpage isn’t there anymore. There’s plenty of articles out there about how to make entertaining,...
Eric Bailey
How accessible is your website for the disabled? Consider doing an audit to find out
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
I restyled my Mastodon instance More than one thing can be true at the same time. For this post, it’s that: Have recently felt a...
a year ago
8
a year ago
More than one thing can be true at the same time. For this post, it’s that: Have recently felt a lack of control in many of aspects of my life, I’m still technically a designer, and that I like CSS a lot. Because of this, I’ve found a new worry stone: my Mastodon...
Eric Bailey
Presentation panic I used to get panic attacks when I had to give a client presentation. This was before I was really...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I used to get panic attacks when I had to give a client presentation. This was before I was really aware of my anxiety and depression—I didn’t know what they were or what caused them. Because of this, I spent way too much time fixating on the symptoms, and not the cause. Both my...
Eric Bailey
Crafting a chatbot people will use: Part 2
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Modifications we’ve made to the Design Sprint
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
A designer developing for Android
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Quick Tip: Use the “lang” Attribute for Better Accessibility
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Let’s Talk About Speech CSS
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Instituting a culture of accessibility in your organization: Part 1
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Oh shit banners I have worked for two newspapers over the course of my career (three if you count my high school...
a year ago
8
a year ago
I have worked for two newspapers over the course of my career (three if you count my high school newspaper). One thing I learned there is that the top half of each and every newspaper homepage is a daily battle of priorities. The idea here is that the thing that is highest,...
Eric Bailey
Basic keyboard shortcut support for focused links This is one of those cases where circumstances at my job led to needing to document expected...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
This is one of those cases where circumstances at my job led to needing to document expected behavior in order to create “synthetic” links via JavaScript. Sometimes this sort of thing is regrettably unavoidable. A large part of the effort was capturing all the different actions...
Eric Bailey
Thoughts on embedding alternative text metadata into images Another trend I see from time to time on social media is the idea that images should have...
11 months ago
8
11 months ago
Another trend I see from time to time on social media is the idea that images should have alternative (alt) text descriptions included in their metadata. Like a lot of things accessibility-related, the idea contains nuance that needs unpacking. At a high level, storing alt text...
Eric Bailey
Yes, accessibility is also a backend concern There is a prevailing notion in web development that the frontend—the discipline of creating what...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
There is a prevailing notion in web development that the frontend—the discipline of creating what someone can see and do on a website or web app—is the only place you need to consider accessibility. This simply isn’t true. Accessibility is a holistic practice that touches every...
Eric Bailey
The case for null in design systems
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Tribble Tribble, Tribs, Tribby P, little guy, little dude, bud, buddy. You’re my best friend’s cat, but I’m...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Tribble, Tribs, Tribby P, little guy, little dude, bud, buddy. You’re my best friend’s cat, but I’m the next-of-kin on the pet-sitter paperwork. You’re not mine, but I’m definitely a part of you. You’ve been a presence and a comfort through most of my adult life. I’d like to...
Eric Bailey
Where do you put spacing on design system components? I work on design systems now. It scratches a lot of itches I have, most importantly organizing and...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I work on design systems now. It scratches a lot of itches I have, most importantly organizing and standardizing things, as well as baking accessibility in at both the design and development layers. My very cool boss is working on updating our grid system, and with that comes...
Eric Bailey
The endless search for “here” in the unhelpful “click here” button
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Equivalent Experiences: Thinking Equivalently
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Battery Status API: We need to talk
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
<code>aria-label</code> is a code smell The aria-label property is made available to us by the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The aria-label property is made available to us by the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) standard. It allows a property/value declaration in HTML as a way of providing an accessible name for an interactive element. Accessible names Accessible names use text to identify...
Eric Bailey
Accessibility auditing and ego At its core, an accessibility audit is about determining if a disabled person can use a digital...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
At its core, an accessibility audit is about determining if a disabled person can use a digital experience. It takes a snapshot of a website, app, kiosk, or other digital experience and provides a summary of: What isn’t working, How numerous the problems are, How severe the...
Eric Bailey
Consistently Inconsistent: The Pitfalls of Abandoning External Consistency
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Equivalent experience can cut both ways I’ve been taking screen reader lessons. I found someone who is kind enough to offer their time and...
a year ago
8
a year ago
I’ve been taking screen reader lessons. I found someone who is kind enough to offer their time and expertise (and grace in answering the occasional ignorant question) in exchange for payment. The goal here is to uncover assumptions I carry with me when using assistive technology,...
Eric Bailey
Visit for a surprise Could spoiling a joke be an accessibility issue? You better believe it. Web Content Accessibility...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Could spoiling a joke be an accessibility issue? You better believe it. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Success Criterion 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context) instructs us to ensure that a link’s accessible name makes sense when separated from its surrounding context. It’s why...
Eric Bailey
Spear phishing with Slackbot for fun and profit Slack went from IRC-but-with-WebKit to critical piece of business infrastructure almost overnight....
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Slack went from IRC-but-with-WebKit to critical piece of business infrastructure almost overnight. I’m a big fan. It freed us from the tyranny of passive aggressive email chains, and when practiced with good etiquette quickly became my favorite way of communicating via text at...
Eric Bailey
100 Improving The Accessibility Of Your Markdown marks the hundredth post I’ve written. 100 is a bit of...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Improving The Accessibility Of Your Markdown marks the hundredth post I’ve written. 100 is a bit of an arbitrary number, but we’ve mostly decided to be a base 10 society, so it also represents an opportunity to take pause. I’ve written ~143,500 words since 2015, not counting...
Eric Bailey
Undercover Founder
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Paint the Picture, Not the Frame: How Browsers Provide Everything Users Need
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Accessible SVGs in High Contrast Mode
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Organizational buy-in on Responsive Design
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
I’ll Make an Exception Just for You: Using the Exception Comment to Help Maintain Mature,...
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Chinese rooms, wasps, slime molds, and the problem of other minds The Chinese room is an argument created by philosopher John Searle. It states that computer programs...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The Chinese room is an argument created by philosopher John Searle. It states that computer programs will never have consciousness, despite appearing so to an external human observer. Arguments about strong artifical intelligence, as well as the philosophy of mind commonly cite...
Eric Bailey
Organize your CSS declarations alphabetically There are a few schools of thought when it comes to organizing your CSS declarations. Each approach...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
There are a few schools of thought when it comes to organizing your CSS declarations. Each approach uses an underlying concept to impose a specific declaration order. When I say organizing declarations, I’m talking about the CSS code placed inside selectors, not an approach to...
Eric Bailey
It needs to map back to a role One of the coolest things about being someone who creates digital products is sometimes you get to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
One of the coolest things about being someone who creates digital products is sometimes you get to create experiences that have never existed before. The history of websites, web apps, and native apps is full of countless widgets that let you enter and manipulate content in new...
Eric Bailey
<code>contrast-color()</code> is a good thing, but also solving the problem at the wrong layer Browsers are a failure of imagination. I understand that new browser features and functionality need...
9 months ago
8
9 months ago
Browsers are a failure of imagination. I understand that new browser features and functionality need to be rolled out with care, in that you need to accommodate a wide range of technological literacy and familiarity. This is to say nothing of built-up muscle memory and the risk...
Eric Bailey
Zombie Slack channels I’ve witnessed this phenomenon across enough corporate Slack workspaces that I think I can speak to...
a year ago
8
a year ago
I’ve witnessed this phenomenon across enough corporate Slack workspaces that I think I can speak to it with confidence. What is a zombie Slack channel? If you use Slack (or Teams, or some other similar app) at work I’m sure you’ve encountered zombie channels before. Zombie Slack...
Eric Bailey
Insulin dump My partner is a teacher. One of their students, a sixth grade girl, was recently diagnosed with Type...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
My partner is a teacher. One of their students, a sixth grade girl, was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. The student is allowed to keep a small purse with her at all times, as it contains a smartphone that runs an app that talks to, and controls her insulin pump. The...
Eric Bailey
How-to: Use the tabindex attribute
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Using a folder other than <code>posts/</code> with Eleventy I just updated this site to use Eleventy. I don’t update enchilada that much anymore. It’s now more...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I just updated this site to use Eleventy. I don’t update enchilada that much anymore. It’s now more a place to centralize all the little tweaks and gotchas of web work, and less a platform for scaffolding websites. In all honestly, enchilada was intended more to be more a simple...
Eric Bailey
Truths about digital accessibility Creating, maintaining, or evaluating accessible technology? Here are some things to keep in mind...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Creating, maintaining, or evaluating accessible technology? Here are some things to keep in mind (note that identity-first language is intentional): Each screen reader behaves differently This is by design. Behavior is a balancing act between a screen reader’s features, the...
Eric Bailey
Listing posts in Eleventy when you publish offsite I write a lot, and a lot of my writing is published on other sites. One of the functions of my site...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I write a lot, and a lot of my writing is published on other sites. One of the functions of my site is to serve as an archive, so I can keep track of what I’ve done where. Eleventy is good at a lot of things, and one of those things is getting a blog up and running quickly and...
Eric Bailey
Improving the usability and accessibility of a healthcare website by being mindful of reading level
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text I played a lot of the pen-and-paper roleplaying game in high school and college. I’m now...
7 months ago
8
7 months ago
I played a lot of the pen-and-paper roleplaying game in high school and college. I’m now conceptually more into Dungeon World’s approach, but I digress. Unlike Tom Hanks, I avoided turning into a delusional murderer. Instead, I deepened some friendships, had a lot of big laughs,...
Eric Bailey
Short note: Disavowing Snake People 3.0: Slither with a Hiss I am the original author of the browser extension Millennials to Snake People. The code that powers...
7 months ago
8
7 months ago
I am the original author of the browser extension Millennials to Snake People. The code that powers this extension is public and transparent. There is another browser extension called “Snake People 3.0: Slither with a Hiss”. It is made by the highly suspicious Firefox user...
Eric Bailey
Workplace discrimination: another terrible thing Windows Recall might enable Much has been written about the terrifying privacy implications of Microsoft’s new Windows Recall...
8 months ago
8
8 months ago
Much has been written about the terrifying privacy implications of Microsoft’s new Windows Recall “feature”. Talking to even one person who works in cybersecurity, political advocacy, domestic abuse prevention, LGBTQ+ support, etc. would reveal the full, naked horror this sort of...
Eric Bailey
Don’t use custom CSS scrollbars In the spirit of “everything old is new again,” browsers are once again supporting the ability to...
a year ago
8
a year ago
In the spirit of “everything old is new again,” browsers are once again supporting the ability to style the scrollbar. Much like custom CSS mouse cursors, I feel this is also a mistake. When you style things on the web, you get control over almost the entire experience. From ten...
Eric Bailey
Mobile Accessibility: How to Build Apps that Work for All Users
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Open UI and implicit parent/child relationships in HTML This phenomenon indirectly came up recently in an Open UI meeting I was attending. If you’re not...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
This phenomenon indirectly came up recently in an Open UI meeting I was attending. If you’re not familiar, Open UI is a group full of people far smarter than I am working to “allow web developers to style and extend built-in web UI controls.” Background HTML elements are single...
Eric Bailey
SVG, Favicons, and All the Fun Things We Can Do With Them
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Reader Mode: The Button to Beat
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Quick test: Large touch targets
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Focusing on Focus Styles
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Attempting to corral colors with a Sass function
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
On Jakob Nielsen, AI hype, and accessibility A few years ago I made a New Year’s Eve resolution to stop overthinking assholes. I could...
11 months ago
8
11 months ago
A few years ago I made a New Year’s Eve resolution to stop overthinking assholes. I could delicately, patiently, and painstakingly debunk the gigantic, misplaced swing of a man who is burning others' lived experience as fuel to propel his increasingly irrelevant career. I could...
Eric Bailey
Voice Control Usability Considerations For Partially Visually Hidden Link Names
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
I’ve had enough! When access friction becomes an access barrier
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Forbidden noodles My obsession with food-based taxonomy continues. Here are all the forbidden noodles I am aware...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
My obsession with food-based taxonomy continues. Here are all the forbidden noodles I am aware of: Bucatini The FDA banning the import of this beloved pasta was one of the many tragedies 2020 visited on us. If there is any consolation, know that the De Cecco pasta factories have...
Eric Bailey
Blogroll If you are unfamiliar, blogrolls are a simple list of links to other blogs that the blog’s author...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
If you are unfamiliar, blogrolls are a simple list of links to other blogs that the blog’s author finds interesting and worth sharing. Blogrolls mostly fell on the wayside as the web matured and industrialized. In an era that is obsessed with conversion funnels, the idea that...
Eric Bailey
The Radium Craze Radium was discovered in 1898 by Polish chemist Marie Sklodowska Curie. To produce radium, you need...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Radium was discovered in 1898 by Polish chemist Marie Sklodowska Curie. To produce radium, you need to extract it from pitchblende, an ore that contains uranium. Radium was discovered in working with the known properties of pitchblende. Curie noticed that pitchblende in its...
Eric Bailey
Lighthouse Lighthouse is an open source auditing tool made by Google to help developers understand how well...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Lighthouse is an open source auditing tool made by Google to help developers understand how well their site is doing in terms of four metrics: Performance, Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Accessibility. If you’re feeling adventurous, it will also measure...
Eric Bailey
GitHub now has a setting to underline links A public beta was released for GitHub on Friday the 29th. It allows you to apply or remove an...
a year ago
7
a year ago
A public beta was released for GitHub on Friday the 29th. It allows you to apply or remove an underline effect to links in body content. The link underlines are present in Issue and Pull Request comments, as well as other areas of the site. We are still identifying areas where...
Eric Bailey
Global Accessibility Anger Day For each and every Global Accessibility Awareness Day (#GAAD) post a company puts out today,...
a year ago
7
a year ago
For each and every Global Accessibility Awareness Day (#GAAD) post a company puts out today, ask: Does the announcement page support basic accessibility considerations (underlined links, captioned videos, valid markup, etc.)? Does the announcement include alternative descriptions...
Eric Bailey
a11y is web accessibility For better or worse, I spend a decent amount of time on social media. When you read it regularly,...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
For better or worse, I spend a decent amount of time on social media. When you read it regularly, you start to notice that there’s an ebb and flow to the kinds of things that get brought up. People post ideas and observations, followed by reactions, counter-reactions,...
Eric Bailey
The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
The case for adding validation state to your design tokens .verbal-token { border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; border-radius: 0.5rem; ...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
.verbal-token { border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; border-radius: 0.5rem; padding: 0.15rem 0.5rem; } Naming things is hard. One way to go about naming things is via topology, the practice of classifying things by way of their visual characteristics. It is...
Eric Bailey
Maralinga bomb test On September 17th, 1956 an atomic bomb was detonated in Maralinga, Australia. The bomb’s testing...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
On September 17th, 1956 an atomic bomb was detonated in Maralinga, Australia. The bomb’s testing program was codenamed One Tree, and utilized a payload comparable to the horrific Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II. The test was part of Operation...
Eric Bailey
What they don’t tell you when you translate your app Forget inverting binary trees, translating or localizing a digital experience is one of the most...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Forget inverting binary trees, translating or localizing a digital experience is one of the most difficult things you can do with software. There’s plenty of content out there about how to perform the basic design and development aspects of translation and localization work....
Eric Bailey
Give me a definition for the word dashboard I finished up a research project a couple of weeks ago, and I'd like to share a detail that...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I finished up a research project a couple of weeks ago, and I'd like to share a detail that completely threw me for a loop. We were conducting user research with a demographic with a high degree of variability in both skill level and technological literacy. The common thread was...
Eric Bailey
An Introduction to macOS Voice Control
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Tech metaphors Tired of referencing the same yaks, sheds, and cars over and over again? Here’s a few new metaphors...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Tired of referencing the same yaks, sheds, and cars over and over again? Here’s a few new metaphors to drop at your next sprint planning meeting: Winchester Mystery House A mansion in San Jose, California that was once occupied by Sarah Winchester, widow of the eponymous firearms...
Eric Bailey
Building a Good Download… Button?
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
I love my slightly smart tiny TV details { font-size: var(--scale1); margin-top: 0.25rem !important; } details summary...
9 months ago
7
9 months ago
details { font-size: var(--scale1); margin-top: 0.25rem !important; } details summary { line-height: 1.2; } details p { line-height: 1.35; margin-top: var(--scale0); } I swear this isn’t a sponsored post. I impulse bought a TinyTV 2 recently. It...
Eric Bailey
Websites, politics, and preferences A website is a manifestation of an organization’s politics. Its setting page is a manifestation its...
a year ago
7
a year ago
A website is a manifestation of an organization’s politics. Its setting page is a manifestation its priorities.
Eric Bailey
Your CSS is an interface My partner is learning Japanese using the Duolingo app. They’ve been dutifully opening the app and...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
My partner is learning Japanese using the Duolingo app. They’ve been dutifully opening the app and doing daily challenges for over 400 days now. A few days ago, they shared this screenshot with me: If I could wager a guess, it looks like there was a bug with dark mode color logic...
Eric Bailey
Ham biscuit on There is a tweet from a suspended Twitter user that shows a “ham biscuit sign” in its dark and...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
There is a tweet from a suspended Twitter user that shows a “ham biscuit sign” in its dark and lit-up state. Here’s a screenshot of it: Reddit. The sign is used to indicate if that particular McDonald’s had Country Ham Biscuits left in stock. Presumably, they’re a popular...
Eric Bailey
How I grew The A11Y Project to 10k followers on Twitter One thing I’ve been doing for The A11Y project is managing its social media efforts. Since doing so,...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
One thing I’ve been doing for The A11Y project is managing its social media efforts. Since doing so, I’ve slowly grown its Twitter followers to 10,000+. Now, before I get into it, there’s some things worth pointing out: This work was built on top of the efforts of the project...
Eric Bailey
Should I use an accessibility overlay
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
How 3 hours of conversation saved a company hundreds of thousands of dollars
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
I don’t want your job
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Keeping track of letter-spacing, some guidelines
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Tailwind versus BEM
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Web components still need to be accessible
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Invisible success I spent a decent amount of time last year helping to create a table component. Tables are...
10 months ago
7
10 months ago
I spent a decent amount of time last year helping to create a table component. Tables are complicated to make. They’re even more complicated to make accessible. I’m proud of our efforts here, especially because I think we went about making it the right way: Identifying an...
Eric Bailey
Modern Health, frameworks, performance, and harm I would like to thank Modern Health. It was not their intent, but using their service broke me out...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I would like to thank Modern Health. It was not their intent, but using their service broke me out of a deep depression by launching me into an incandescent rage. I’ve read enough on destigmatizing mental health that I feel no shame in discussing this. In fact, in this regard I...
Eric Bailey
Centerless My sense of identity and community have been challenged in multiple, overwhelming ways recently. I...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
My sense of identity and community have been challenged in multiple, overwhelming ways recently. I don’t know what to do about it. Some personal events recently transpired, ones that made me extremely aware of my mortality. They’ve also caused me to reevaluate my self-perception...
Eric Bailey
So you wanna create an eco-friendly website
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Saying no to Diez (for now)
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
The world does not revolve around your product
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
ARIA is Spackle, Not Rebar
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Crafting a chatbot people will use: Part 1
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Websites are like bridges An incomplete list: Most of them are made to make it easier for someone to get to where they want to...
a year ago
7
a year ago
An incomplete list: Most of them are made to make it easier for someone to get to where they want to go. Some are purely utilitarian, a few are completely decorative, and most are a combination of both. Some are built by governments, some are built by organizations, and some are...
Eric Bailey
Sabbath mode and assistive technology features There’s a secret mode that comes with almost all large ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, and other...
a year ago
7
a year ago
There’s a secret mode that comes with almost all large ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, and other large kitchen appliances. It is called Sabbath mode, and there is a very specific reason it is provided by the manufacturer. No, it is not a mode made to placate Ozzy Osbourne....
Eric Bailey
#WorstWorkWednesday This post is in reply to a Tweet from Sara Soueidan about only sharing our best work. It is a...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
This post is in reply to a Tweet from Sara Soueidan about only sharing our best work. It is a conversation how people don’t share negative things on social media, especially in the context of a professional account. #WorstWorkWednesday, the title of this post, is a hashtag coined...
Eric Bailey
Consider the Tomato
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Using personas in the Product Design Sprint
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Little Library
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Your Image Is Probably Not Decorative
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Don’t use custom CSS mouse cursors I believe that letting CSS load a custom cursor was a mistake. This might seem like a niche...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I believe that letting CSS load a custom cursor was a mistake. This might seem like a niche complaint, and you know what? It is. But it’s also an important one. One of the best things about CSS is that it lets us make websites and web apps look like anything we can dream up. One...
Eric Bailey
Mug handles My two-part piece on equivalent experiences is now live on Smashing Magazine. I have complicated...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
My two-part piece on equivalent experiences is now live on Smashing Magazine. I have complicated feelings about it. First off, writing for Smashing Magazine is a great experience, and I encourage you (yes, you) to pitch them. Their team is friendly, knowledgeable, and will help...
Eric Bailey
Operating System and Browser Accessibility Display Modes
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Consent, LLM scrapers, and poisoning the well I remember feeling numb learning that my writing had been sucked up by OpenAI. It came out of...
7 months ago
7
7 months ago
I remember feeling numb learning that my writing had been sucked up by OpenAI. It came out of nowhere and was done without my permission or consent. I have a lot of ethical issues with contemporary AI productization, notably notions around consent, ownership, and environment....
Eric Bailey
<code>display: contents</code> considered harmful display: contents has a long and storied history when it comes to accessibility. On paper, the...
a year ago
7
a year ago
display: contents has a long and storied history when it comes to accessibility. On paper, the declaration alters thedisplay qualities of the element it is applied to. It makes the element “disappear,” elevating its child elements to the next level up in the DOM. This sort of...
Eric Bailey
Minor version bump I got a title change today. I’m now a Senior Designer. What’s worth noting is that this is the first...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I got a title change today. I’m now a Senior Designer. What’s worth noting is that this is the first place I’ve worked that has given me a title change. I’ve been in the industry for 12 years. Titles are really important if you’re a member of a minoritized group. This is to say...
Eric Bailey
A conversation can be an output
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
My jeans’ metadata may outlive the company that sold them I buy clothing in sudden bursts of need. I do this because I wear things past the point where I...
a year ago
7
a year ago
I buy clothing in sudden bursts of need. I do this because I wear things past the point where I probably should not, and then rush to address the gap so I don’t look strange on a Zoom call or at the grocery store. This is to say that quarantine has melted my brain. Speaking of...
Eric Bailey
Representation Matters
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Be the Villain
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
What the Web Still Is
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Free idea: design token ugly mode A lot of work goes into making every page and view of a website or webapp look consistent with every...
7 months ago
7
7 months ago
A lot of work goes into making every page and view of a website or webapp look consistent with every other page or view. It’s just good design. Smaller, newer experiences tend to be more uniform than not. This makes sense in that the bulk of the experience is created at the same...
Eric Bailey
Comic Sans is a good typeface, actually body { font-family: "Comic Sans MS", "Comic Sans", "ChalkboardSE-Regular", "ChalkboardSE",...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
body { font-family: "Comic Sans MS", "Comic Sans", "ChalkboardSE-Regular", "ChalkboardSE", sans-serif; } In my ongoing, inadvertent quest to alienate myself from the design industry, I must now tell you all that Comic Sans is a good typeface. A lot has been written about...
Eric Bailey
Test Your Product on a Crappy Laptop
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Myth: ARIA Has Perfect Support
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Equifax Data Breach, Credit Freezes, and Beholden Design Ever been frustrated because a movie theater plays advertisements before the trailers even start?...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Ever been frustrated because a movie theater plays advertisements before the trailers even start? This is a kind of experience I call “Beholden Design.” Full of Dark Patterns and pain, Beholden Design is the evil, goatee-wearing twin of Universal Design. It forces people to...
Eric Bailey
Dot website I changed this website’s domain from .design to .website as part of my redesign. If you subscribe to...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
I changed this website’s domain from .design to .website as part of my redesign. If you subscribe to my RSS feed (and thank you if you do!), the new URL is: https://ericwbailey.website/feed/feed.xml Before this website was .design it was a .com. I’m not a company, and my...
Eric Bailey
My typical day Hidde kindly nominated me to write one of the “typical day” posts that have been making the blogging...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Hidde kindly nominated me to write one of the “typical day” posts that have been making the blogging rounds. I’ve been enjoying reading them, as they give a nice look into how other people are holding up in quarantine. I’m also all about demystifying things. Here’s my daily...
Eric Bailey
A Complete Guide to CSS Functions
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
An Introduction to the Reduced Motion Media Query
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Building a better button in CSS
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Sandcastles Getting old as a person who makes digital experiences feels a lot like having really strong opinions...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Getting old as a person who makes digital experiences feels a lot like having really strong opinions about how sandcastles should be built.
Eric Bailey
Implicit cultural norms and accessible social media Implicit cultural norms and accessible social media have come up in conversation a few times with...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Implicit cultural norms and accessible social media have come up in conversation a few times with different groups in the past week, so I want to talk about it. Explicit norms are the parameters the social media platform sets for you. Tweets are predominately text and images,...
Eric Bailey
In defense of Mega Man boss lairs Mega Man games are light on plot, but do a lot of showing not telling. This happens to be my...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Mega Man games are light on plot, but do a lot of showing not telling. This happens to be my favorite form of storytelling, so of course I spent too much time thinking about the Mega Man universe. If you’re not familiar, Mega Man is a popular video game franchise, as well as the...
Eric Bailey
Fighting uphill As someone with a good deal of interest in the digital accessibility space, I follow WebAIM’s work...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
As someone with a good deal of interest in the digital accessibility space, I follow WebAIM’s work closely. Their survey results are priceless insights into how disabled people actually use the web, so when the organization speaks with authority on a subject, I listen. WebAIM’s...
Eric Bailey
Swearing and automatic captions Swearing is the spice of language. Throw in a little to make that fucking point you want to make...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Swearing is the spice of language. Throw in a little to make that fucking point you want to make pop. Throw in a shitload to create a motherfucking verbal curry, layers of delicious goddamn meaning to unpack. Swearing is also present in every culture I can think of, with culture...
Eric Bailey
Equivalent Experiences: What Are They?
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Revisiting prefers-reduced-motion, the reduced motion media query
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Use of the design system should factor into promotion packets That’s it, that’s the post.
a year ago
Eric Bailey
thoughtbot.com, dark mode, and other user preferences thoughtbot.com and Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots, thoughtbot’s blog. Dark mode is...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
thoughtbot.com and Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots, thoughtbot’s blog. Dark mode is all the rage in web design right now. It’s a toggle in your operating system settings that allows you to update your operating system from traditional lighter colors to a darker...
Eric Bailey
Re: Selling your extension Although my fifteen minutes of fame for Millennials to Snake people is long over, I still get the...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Although my fifteen minutes of fame for Millennials to Snake people is long over, I still get the occasional email offering to: Buy the extension outright, or Pay me to add their code into it. The goal of each offer is the same. The solicitor wants to add malicious code for some...
Eric Bailey
A bad accessibility trend I’ve noticed A bad accessibility trend I’ve noticed is industries with a lot of gravitas thinking that their use...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
A bad accessibility trend I’ve noticed is industries with a lot of gravitas thinking that their use cases are somehow different and special. Somehow, the thinking becomes “our UI component is different because we deal with healthcare/banking/taxes/etc.” The opposite, however, is...
Eric Bailey
Instituting a culture of accessibility in your organization: Part 2
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
Multipage Version Zine, Issue 1 I contributed two pages to Multipage Version, Mat Marquis’ new zine. The zine is about HTML...
9 months ago
5
9 months ago
I contributed two pages to Multipage Version, Mat Marquis’ new zine. The zine is about HTML elements, and is intended to be printed out as physical media. It was a ton of fun to make, and so refreshing to get back to print media design for a bit. Here are the two pages I...
Eric Bailey
Where do you start measuring distance from when the origin is the bottom of a block of text? To frame this post, I’d like to share a tweet by Irina Bednova: Apparently everyone in our team...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
To frame this post, I’d like to share a tweet by Irina Bednova: Apparently everyone in our team interpreted "lgtm" in Github reviews differently. The interpretation were: - Lets get this merged - Looks good to me - Legitimate — Irina Bednova (@jafrog) February 1, 2019 This is...
Eric Bailey
accessiBe and the false David vs. Goliath narrative immediately stop creating harm for the people trying to use your website or web app. Remove...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
immediately stop creating harm for the people trying to use your website or web app. Remove accessiBe’s one line of embed code, ride out your contract’s remaining time, and don’t renew—treat the cost as lesson learned. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of accessibility...
Eric Bailey
The possibilities of the color-adjust property
over a year ago
Eric Bailey
A website is like a puppy It’s exciting and fun, but also comes with a lot of responsibility. Successfully taking care of it...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
It’s exciting and fun, but also comes with a lot of responsibility. Successfully taking care of it means you’ll need to stick to a routine. It can bring you moments of both great joy and sorrow. It costs a little more than you think it will. It will also probably grow to be a...
Eric Bailey
CSS is a Strongly Typed Language
over a year ago