I’m a designer specialised in building accessible and usable products. I care about design ethics and sustainability.
The following is a method I am trying out, and it might change to address needs I cannot foresee now. Emails start to pile up. Meetings demand attention and consistent follow-up. Add some unrelated stress to the mix, and here I am, resuming my bullet journal. However, a bullet journal cannot really contain all the information needed to complete my tasks. Enter the work journal. I don’t know…
The latest accessibility news and discoveries. A monthly update. Apple’s latest software updates introduced new issues for assistive technology users Apple has acknowledged a series of bugs affecting Voice Control in macOS 26, the company’s built-in accessibility feature that allows people to fully operate a Mac by voice. Over the past week, users have reported that several key commands are not…
The latest accessibility news and discoveries. A monthly update. The BBC published “The Socioeconomic Impact of Digital Transition” report The BBC commissioned a report to evaluate the potential scale of the opportunity that a transition to a fully online future could bring . The report, now published, identifies three digitally excluded groups: People who are unemployed, who are often held back…
The latest accessibility news and discoveries. A monthly update. France has just made the EAA (European Accessibility Act) a reality Four major French retailers’s websites and mobile applications have been found to be inaccessible to visually impaired and blind people. The companies involved are: Auchan Carrefour E. Leclerc Picard Surgelés The organizations ApiDV and Droit Pluriel, along with…
The use of generated text might save time for who creates, but the results are lazy and unhelpful. Don’t be that person. Yesterday I received an email from a company’s career portal that asked whether I still wished to be considered for new vacancies. My email client, Thunderbird, blocks remote images, so I get to see the effort people put into providing alternative text. The descriptions are…
British Paralympian and orthopaedic surgeon John McFall has received approval to take part in a mission to the International Space Station. In 2000, at the age of 19, he lost his right leg above the knee after a serious motorcycle accident. After getting a prosthetic leg, he started running again and took part in his first race in 2004. “One of the roles of an astronaut is to do important science…
As a subscriber to my blog through RSS, I wanted to let you know about some changes. You are now reading my work blog, where I focus mainly on accessibility topics. The blog you used to follow has been moved to silviamaggi.co.uk , where I will continue writing about personal experiences, design, and other subjects. Thank you for your continued support! Look for the RSS feed you had been following…
A campaign seeks to better represent disabled individuals and change the way they are portrayed in pictures. The Business Disability Forum, the leading organisation in the UK focused on including people with disabilities in business, has developed “Changing the Image of Disability.” This resource offers guidance on how to select, commission, and use images of disabled individuals. 1 in 4 people in…
An exciting new initiative to highlight and share the different stories of disabled people in Cambridgeshire. The Museum of Cambridge and Rowan Humberstone, a local arts centre and forest school supporting adults with learning disabilities, partnered to produce an exciting new initiative they hope it will inspire other institutions across the UK. They will highlight and share the different stories…
Big and small improvements that make a difference in the daily lives of people with disabilities. Today: clothing. Primark is introducing a collection of 49 clothing items for both women and men, designed specifically for people with a range of disabilities. The affordable high street store has teamed up with Victoria Jenkins, a fashion designer with a disability and the founder of the brand…
Challenging conventional perceptions of design, Dr. Moore emphasises that design should promote equity and dignity for everybody. Dr. Patricia Moore is a pioneer in the field of inclusive design. She says it’s time to move away from those terms, stating that “what we had before was elitist design, because it wasn’t for everybody”, and “I think we’re close to the point when we don’t have to say…
I tell you about the period I couldn’t use my arm, and how I used technology to work. But seriously, I should have rested. On 24 November 2022, I came out an operating room and reported to my husband that the doctor said everything went fine. I only needed six weeks of complete rest . Non-negotiable. Just like John McClane in the first Die Hard, we had plans, and initially thought the timing could…
Second post of a series where I explain the steps I’m taking to make my website accessible. In September last year, having closely studied the WCAG 2.1 success criteria, I decided to examine my own website before assessing the accessibility of other websites. I finally have had some time to continue the improvements after so many months. In the meantime, I went on with my studies, performed…
To wrap up the third month working as accessibility consultant for Italy’s top bank, I’m sharing a few things I learned. This is the second instalment of a series, read about the second month . Background The Stanca Law or Disability Law (9 January 2004, n. 4) has been updated. It now applies to all public companies offering services through websites or mobile applications and have had an average…
To wrap up the second month working as accessibility consultant for Italy’s top bank, I’m sharing a few things I learned. This is the second instalment of a series, read about the first month . Background The Stanca Law or Disability Law (9 January 2004, n. 4) has been updated. It now applies to all public companies offering services through websites or mobile applications and have had an average…
To wrap up the first month working as accessibility consultant for Italy’s top bank, I’m sharing a few things I learned. Background The Stanca Law or Disability Law (9 January 2004, n. 4) has been updated. It now applies to all public companies offering services through websites or mobile applications and have had an average turnover of 500 million euros in the past three years. The law, which…
As I took a closer look to the WCAG 2.1 success criteria, I decided to take a step-by-step approach to make my website entirely compliant. First of a series. When I designed and developed my new website , I took care of all the details that make a site compliant with the basic WCAG rules. A test with WAVE didn’t reveal any problematic issue. I checked the colour contrast of elements, the…
Knitting website Ravelry lost the trust of their community after their rebranding efforts caused several users adverse side effects from browsing the site. Ravelry’s Wikipedia page states that, as of March 2020, they had almost 9 million registered users, and approximately 1 million monthly active users. What happened On 16 June 2020, with no previous announcements, Ravelry rolled out a redesigned…