86 posts
Equal Entry's articles on digital accessibility: how audits and testing work, the most common problems and how to fix them, and interviews with people working in the field.
PAC NYC built accessibility into its digital ecosystem from the very beginning, creating a smoother and more usable experience for all visitors. Through user journey testing, Equal...
Google Docs replaces pasted URLs with page titles automatically. This small change helps people who use screen readers or voice control navigate more easily. It shows how building...
Accessibility remediation is the technical work that removes barriers in your product’s code. Equal Entry reviews your issue list, prioritizes fixes by user journey, and works...
A digital accessibility audit shows how well your product works for people with disabilities and anyone using accessibility tools. Equal Entry’s audit reveals where people get...
Accessibility issues often appear quietly: After a plugin update, a new comment, or a small content change no one notices. Manual audits catch the big, complex problems, but...
Audio description makes videos more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision by describing visual elements. Blizzard’s Kiriko video uses great audio description...
In a world driven by advanced technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and extended reality (XR), the key to genuine advancement lies in embracing...
Automated testing tools for accessibility are software applications that evaluate websites, applications, and documents for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines...
When hosting an online meeting with people from all over the world, it isn’t realistic to expect everyone to be fluent in the same language. As discussed in a previous post about...
It’s not realistic to expect everyone attending meetings will speak the same language. That’s why it’s important to discuss how to make events accessible in more than one language....
Procurement officers and employees responsible for purchasing products for a company may request an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) based on the ITI Voluntary Product...
Equal Entry conducts many audits. In doing the work, we make suggestions on how to make something accessible and improve the user experience. We want to share what we’ve discovered...
AccessAbility Officer has a job readiness training program designed for non-sighted vocational rehabilitation customers who want to be digital accessibility testers. Students...
Very few video games have earned as much hype and won as many awards in the past year as Vampire Survivors. It’s all the more remarkable when you remember it’s a $5 game made by...
I came to New York to see my first-ever captioned live Broadway show. I’ve seen captioned movies at the theater. But I had never attended a live show that had captions. Once, I...
While in New York City, Thomas Logan and I went to New York University’s Ability Project. It’s an interdisciplinary research space dedicated to the intersection between disability...
Equal Entry held a user research study on virtual reality accessibility for blind users in New York City. This involved nine participants who commuted from their homes to the NYU...
Before COVID, virtual events tended to be a Plan B or used in companies with remote workers. After the pandemic hit, virtual meetings became a necessity. Meetup, a website that...
We scoured the many news announcements to find the most talked about accessibility news of 2022. We made a list. Checked it twice. Put it all into a form for you to decide. Here...
Testing iOS 16 Live Captions (beta) revealed that it has bugs. The post details how to solve the annoyance of the floating button using an Accessibility Shortcut, but the core...
In digital accessibility, the team of accessibility specialists includes blind team members who exemplify the spirit of digital accessibility. These accessibility specialists also...
Thomas Logan and I met with Chancey Fleet at New York Public Library’s Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library. We explored the library where we found many books filled...
Equal Entry audits hundreds of web pages, from retail shopping sites to news aggregators to custom web apps that solve custom problems. We manually navigate your sites with a...
It wasn’t long ago that most developers knew nothing about accessibility. Ian Hamilton talks about the accessibility of gaming and whether the industry is making progress. He also...
Eiko Kimura is the first person with a severe disability who is a member of the House of Councillors in Japan. Here’s a little background on Japan’s National Diet for those not...
by Alwar Pillai, CEO and Co-Founder, Fable I started Fable, an accessibility platform powered by people with disabilities because I wanted to change the status quo around...
Screen Reader 101 discusses the basics of using a screen reader and getting started with one on a computer. This sparks interest and conversations as it reveals that blind people...
“If you had to choose, would you have a human captioner or an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter at a live online event?” Equal Entry’s Owner Thomas Logan asked me. My...
“What is a screen reader anyway?” I remember asking this very same question when being introduced to the wonderful world of assistive technologies. The person told me that a screen...
Any company thinking about acquiring another company (the target) will not jump into a deal without doing a thorough analysis. While two companies may look compatible on paper,...
It all started with us submitting a support ticket. No threats. No demands for escalation. Just a simple support ticket. We know that’s not the answer most people expect with...
The Japanese language consists of two writing systems known as hiragana and katakana based on Chinese characters. Together, they’re known as kana. Hiragana and katakana are easily...
Prior to releasing it, Apple promised iOS 14 would come with enhanced accessibility features. Sure enough, the company came through. Out of all the added accessibility...
Editor’s note: For the purpose of this article, captions and subtitles are interchangeable. Captions are the text that appears on the screen capturing the audio. Almost a year ago,...
This new normal has turned a fast, reliable, and convenient way to communicate into an essential part of our day-to-day. Be it for work, for school, or even for our daily...
In this day and age when technology is at its peak, communication and information dissemination are vital in our highly digital world. One of the strongest and most effective...
When accessible technologies for the blind started to become more of a fixture in the global IT industry, blind people all over the world, myself included, became more expectant...
On July 2, 2020, a visitor to the Equal Entry website left us the following message: This accessibility Comment Web page May have 2 errors and 5 Alerts Suggested Screen TOOL and...
On July 2, 2020, Accessibility VR hosted a Meetup entitled Improving Mobility by Assisting Cognition: A Case Study. Presenter Romain Delgrange, cognitive psychologist and...
“See the world together” is the tagline for the unique, philanthropic mobile application “Be My Eyes.” As defined on their website, this is a free app that connects blind and...
In December 2019, Equal Entry, TetraLogical and Infoaxia jointly announced a new international accessibility alliance. Today we are pleased to announce that Intopia has joined us....
The scene: a Mac user is trying to test color contrast with a tool like The Paciello Group’s Colour Contrast Analyser. When they grab a color using the color picker, it doesn’t...
In an increasingly data-driven world, persons with special needs, particularly the blind, may find themselves left in the dark when it comes to visual representations of...
2019 was another banner year for lawsuits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III alleging discrimination on the basis of digital accessibility. Suits filed...
When technology becomes accessible, it becomes better for everyone. Apple has proven this once again with the release of their newest accessibility feature called Voice Control. ...
Can your brain wrap around the thought that a single tweet or a TV show could potentially kill you? Sounds far-fetched you might say, but technology says otherwise. Reality check:...
Every year on December 3rd, the United Nations (UN) celebrates International Day of Persons with Disabilities by holding an event at its headquarters in Manhattan, NY. Since I...
New international accessibility alliance to enable global organizations to navigate regional regulatory and cultural accessibility standards. Global organizations now deliver...
In the summer of 2013, I decided to transition from walking with a cane to having a guide dog. I was matched with a sweet black lab named Karleen. Karleen helps me with many...
In an age when life is tightly tied with technology, it is no surprise that most products and services are slowly translated into digital forms. The banking industry is no...
Introduction Emoji have become an essential part of text conversations. They are the closest thing we have to a universal language that anyone can understand, including voiceover...
When I first heard about The Vessel, New York City’s new interactive landmark created by Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studio, I was curious how they would incorporate...
LCI is one of the largest employers of Americans who are blind and visually impaired, currently employing over 350 individuals that are blind or low vision. LCI creates over 2,000...
What’s an Audio Description? Audio description is an optional narration track intended for blind and low-vision consumers of visual media. A narrator talks through a presentation,...
On Sunday, July 14, New York City held its Fifth Annual Disability Pride Parade, organized by the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) and Disability Pride NYC....
Intro and Overview The M-Enabling Summit Conference and Showcase was held in Washington DC June 17 – 19. M-Enabling is dedicated to promoting accessible and assistive technologies,...
Fifty Shades of Grey Technology has made it possible for legally blind people like myself to do many things independently. However, shopping for clothes is arguably not one of...
As a DC transplant from New York City, I am used to having to cross busy intersections with a lot of traffic as a legally blind pedestrian. With proper mobility training, I am able...
Today, one of Paciello Group’s best-known tools is a very useful Colour Contrast Inspector. A standalone tool with minimal setup and footprint, the tool lets you get to what you...
Don’t just cheer on the Paralympians, get involved! My oldest daughter is a Foil fencer. I, like most fencing parents, didn’t know the first thing about the sport before she...
As smartphones increase in size, they also become increasingly difficult to use with one hand. This has become such a common problem for everyone and not just people with...
I’d been looking forward to the release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC) since it was announced. Like so many other millennials, I loved playing video games as a young child,...
With 948,208 people with disabilities living in the five boroughs of New York City as of 2014, the availability of accessible transit options is of immense importance in order for...
While I am not familiar with the technical aspects of web design, I use screen readers to navigate the web for both work and personal use. I am comfortable with advanced screen...
As far as technology companies go, Apple has had a commitment to accessibility much earlier than most. It introduced VoiceOver to Mac computers in 2005 and to the iPhone in 2009....
My first year attending Tech Inclusion New York left me with some very strong feelings. I’d found it so intellectually stimulating, but felt disappointed at the level of inclusion...
I have written in previous articles on this blog about my passion for navigating unfamiliar places. I love going for walks around the neighborhood, finding new restaurants, and...
I recently had the opportunity to work with the brilliant Song Maker app from Google Creative Lab, Yotam Mann, and Use All Five. “Song Maker is a simple way for anyone to make and...
In November 2013, the Department of Transportation issued new rules under the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, requiring airline websites and ticket kiosks to be accessible to...
My passion for accessible technology was ignited sixteen years ago at the University of North Carolina when I was a Computer Science undergraduate. I worked on a small team...
In March 2018, Microsoft released Soundscape — a free iOS app that uses 3D audio to help visually impaired people create a mental map of what is around. The app works by allowing...
The Section 508 requirements were established in 1998, and they require Federal agencies to develop and procure technology accessible to people with disabilities. Over the past 20...
by Sam Berman The Leap Motion Controller is an exciting new navigation and interaction device for virtual reality and personal computing on both Mac and Windows platforms. This...
by Sofia Gallo Most iPhone owners do not even know it exists, but every Apple phone comes with a feature called VoiceOver — a screen reader that allows visually impaired people to...
The most popular application of VR as it stands now is gaming. Never has this been more obvious than with the opening of VR World, New York City’s first virtual reality arcade....
by Sofia Gallo One of the questions I often get from my friends is, “How do you use the internet?” After all, at first glance, a computer seems like a visual tool – looking at the...
An Introduction Last month, Microsoft introduced Seeing AI – an app that would describe the world for visually impaired people using artificial intelligence technology. Due to my...
by Sam Berman Like many people, my first direct, real-world interaction with artificial intelligence was with Siri on my iPhone. It was the first implementation of artificial...
A review of Dragon NaturallySpeaking from the early 2000s. Compare its dictation improvements and persistent accessibility issues.
Sue Martin’s first book, Out of the Whirlpool, is a deeply honest and moving account of the rebuilding of her life after a suicide attempt in her youth ended in traumatic...
This installment of our Accessibility Activists column is an interview with Alexander Shutov, creator of Dark Reader, a Chrome plugin that adjusts the color contrast in your...
Testing software, hardware, or websites to accessibility standards can often be a classic “peeling back layers of an onion” problem. You know you need to make your offerings...
One of the holy grails of computing is to one day be able to have machines perform perfect speech recognition. The ability to control computers with speech benefits everyone, but...
Zuma, a tile-matching puzzle video game created by PopCap Games, continues to be one of the most popular free games on the internet. During play, colored balls roll around the...
Music allows people around the world to creatively express their thoughts and feelings. For people who share this passion, losing the ability to make music would be a depressing...
The New York Times reports that a recent local election frustrated many citizens by printing information on the ballot in a nearly illegible 7pt font. There is no New York state...
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