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How far can automated tools go towards ensuring accessibility?

Some accessibility tooling vendors estimate that their products can catch anywhere from 30 to 80% of “accessibility issues”. But what is defined as an “accessibility issue”? How are these numbers calculated? Here, we’ll explore the most common class of automated accessibility tooling, Static Code Analysis (SCA), and how new automation techniques can expand the universe of what’s possible.

Audience: Heads of Accessibility, Developers, Quality Engineers
Reading time: 5 minutes
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Disability Pride Month

As we move through August, it’s important to carry forward the spirit of Disability Pride Month, which we celebrated in July, with a lens of intersectionality. Disability Pride recognizes how disability intersects with other marginalized groups such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status, and calls for urgency in amplifying the voices of disabled people at their intersections for the benefit of all in both physical and digital spaces.

Audience: General
Reading time: 7 minutes
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How Continuous Accessibility contributes to accessibility maturity

Accessibility maturity models can improve outcomes both for internal employees and external users of our products. Much of improving your organization’s accessibility maturity is about people and policy, but there is a slice of it that can benefit from smartly delegating to the machines.

Audience: Heads of Accessibility, Developers, Quality Engineers
Reading time: 7 minutes
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AAPI Month + Disability

May 1st marks the start of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (#AAPI). Thus, it's a great time to highlight people at the intersection of AAPI+Disabled.

Audience: General
Reading time: 4 minutes
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Confronting ableism to build a more inclusive web

Web software, like all technology, amplifies the priorities of the people who build it. What does that say about our commitment to web accessibility?

Audience: General
Reading time: 7 minutes
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Using Chrome Live Caption to augment speech viewers

Screen reader speech viewers are notoriously inaccurate. Luckily, Assistiv Labs’ live testing product supports Google Chrome Live Caption. Read on to learn when this is a viable way to ensure your testing results are correct.

Audience: Quality Engineers
Reading time: 3 minutes
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Women’s History Month + Disability

It’s #WomensHistoryMonth, and amidst the celebration it’s imperative to highlight the often overlooked contributions of Disabled Women.

Audience: General
Reading time: 3 minutes
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Black History Month + Disability

As we start Black History Month, often the stories we share omit Disabled identity and experience when it applies. Thus, I wanted to start a series amplifying important figures with an intersection of Black+Disabled.

Audience: General
Reading time: 7 minutes
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How End-to-End Testing moves us closer to Continuous Accessibility

When an accessibility E2E test passes, you should have high confidence that the user flow being tested can be completed using a keyboard, a screen reader like NVDA, or voice control. And this should happen on every code change, providing near-real time feedback for developers.

Audience: Heads of Accessibility, Developers, Quality Engineers
Reading time: 5 minutes
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Continuous Accessibility: What, Why, How

At Assistiv Labs, we think systems that give near-instant insight at the code change level—with broad coverage of WCAG guidelines—will go a long way towards providing the kind of feedback developers need in order to ship highly accessible products as the default.

Audience: Heads of Accessibility, Developers, Quality Engineers
Reading time: 4 minutes
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Getting started with accessibility UX Research

Often when a new accessibility initiative gets underway at a company, people realize how valuable it would be to include disabled participants in User Experience Research (UXR). In this article we’ll discuss how to overcome common difficulties and feel more confident about including diverse participants in meaningful research activities.

Audience: UX Researchers, Designers
Reading time: 12 minutes
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Which Screen Readers and Browsers are best for Accessibility Testing?

Do you need to test your app on Windows and Mac, in Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari, with every popular screen reader? These most popular browser and screen pairings can speed up your testing.

Audience: Heads of Accessibility, Developers, Quality Engineers
Reading time: 8 minutes
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The History of Sticky Keys

The story behind why Sticky Keys opens when you press Shift five times—and how that early accessibility tool was invented twice.

Audience: General
Reading time: 11 minutes
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Where Assistiv Labs fits into the W3C’s Accessibility Maturity Model

The first draft of the W3C’s Accessibility Maturity Model is out and packed with useful guidance for accessibility managers. It’s also a reminder of why it’s so important to provide easy access to assistive technologies.

Audience: Heads of Accessibility
Reading time: 5 minutes
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How to start testing your websites and apps in screen readers

A beginner's guide to using JAWS, NVDA, and other popular screen readers to navigate by element type, with a virtual cursor, and using single letter navigation.

Audience: Developers
Reading time: 9 minutes
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Simplified guide to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

The eight core parts of building a WCAG accessible website, with text for everything, responsive design, appropriate contrast, keyboard shortcuts, outlines, and standards-compliant development.

Audience: Designers, Developers
Reading time: 7 minutes
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