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Re: text in addition to arrows for flashcard navigation?

for

From: Murray Inman
Date: Sep 1, 2022 10:04AM

Very excellent point Steve! Thank you for the reminder.

One thing that I have learned is that when it comes to accessibility, and
something that I try to help people understand, is that accessibility is a
very personal experience for every user. The best way to improve overall
accessibility is to talk to more people (especially those less-similar to
ourselves) and provide options where possible.

I hereby revise my recommendation to keep both text and icon, but to be
sure that the icon doesn't repeat the same thing as the text. I find that
in most situations like this, hiding the icon from screen readers
with aria-hidden="true" attribute works well. A good resource to check is
the accessibility section of Font Awesome
<https://fontawesome.com/docs/web/dig-deeper/accessibility> that breaks
down different common use cases for icon use.

Murray Inman
Manager, Instructional Media and Accessibility
VP, Ability Maricopa Employees with Disability Advocacy Group
Rio Salado College | https://riosalado.edu



On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 8:43 AM Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> You cannot assume that text gives all users a similar experience. Some
> people, especially those with cognitive impairments, benefit greatly from
> the provision of supporting images.
>
> In user testing sessions I have seen people with dyslexia completely fail
> tasks even though they text they needed to complete the task was right in
> front of them. In one case it was a 24pt bold red error message, but
> although they saw it, it just didn't register. In that case the participant
> reckoned that it would have registered if the text was supported by an icon
> or had a thick border.
>
> The lesson for me was that it's really difficult to understand what some
> people perceive when presented with text. It's not just about the words -
> it's about the position, spacing, background colour, supporting imagery and
> other factors. There is no such thing as "universal design"!
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>