The Best Of The Internets

Screen reader compatibility is complex because it relies on a browser and a screen reader to work in tandem. As browsers can be combined with different screen readers, it makes testing a challenge. This matrix goes through a few key ARIA options and approaches, identifying which ones work and which ones don’t using a bunch of combinations. Narrator is sadly missing from the matrix, but this is still a useful resource that I hope continues to grow and get updated. In fact, to that end, I’d love to see it move to Github for more contributions.

This is a drum I’ve been beating for a while: Not all smartphones are created equal. You should be testing on low-spec smartphones.

Smart thinking (as always) from Jason Grigsby. This time he’s asking the right questions about context in the age of tiny screens (smartwatches) and giant ones (smart TVs).

Fantastic history of “Information Architecture” as a practice, with an eye for where it’s heading. Great work Christina Wodtke!

This is a fantastic rant from Thomas Fuchs on error messages and how to do them well (with lots of examples of how not to write error messages).

A nice overview of small screen design trends with backgrounds as to why these approaches work well.

There’s some really good forms advice in here. Just be careful when manipulating the tab flow.

Not on the form. Noted.

Experiments in radio and checkbox resizing. It’s a sad state of affairs. The small hit targets are why I recommend adding negative margins above and below the label, coupled with equal padding top and bottom. It’s a recommendation from my forms talk that I will write up soon.