Eric Bailey

Many forms of assistive technology use keyboard navigation to understand and take action on screen content. One way of navigating is via the Tab key. You may already be familiar with this way of navigating if you use it to quickly jump from input to input on a form without having to reach for your mouse or trackpad.

Tab will jump to interactive elements in the order they show up in the DOM. This is one of the reasons why … Read article “Focus management and inert”

Like any other programming language, CSS has functions. They can be inserted where you’d place a value, or in some cases, accompanying another value declaration.

Favicons are the little icons you see in your browser tab. They help you understand which site is which when you’re scanning through your browser’s bookmarks and open tabs. They’re a neat part of internet history that are capable of performing some cool tricks.

One very new trick is the ability to use SVG as a favicon. It’s something that most modern browsers support, with more support on the way.… Read article “SVG, Favicons, and All the Fun Things We Can Do With Them”

Two years ago, I wrote about prefers-reduced-motion, a media query introduced into Safari 10.1 to help people with vestibular and seizure disorders use the web. The article provided some background about the media query, why it was needed, and how to work with it to avoid creating disability-triggering visual effects.

The article was informed by other people’s excellent work, namely Orde Saunders’ post about user queries, and Val Head’s article on web animation motion sensitivity. … Read article “Revisiting prefers-reduced-motion, the reduced motion media query”

As a young nerd, I loved to immerse myself in digital worlds, learning the ins and outs of the rules someone else had created for me (intentionally or not). But the older and crankier I get, the more I find myself losing patience when navigating these “delightful” experiences.

This fascination was great for my eventual career as a designer, but unfortunately, it was also like teaching someone kerning—once you learn how to quantify a bad user experience, you can’t … Read article “Reader Mode: The Button to Beat”

The Open Web continues to show up in places we would have never originally expected to find it: our phones, televisions, watches, books, video game consoles, fast food menus, gas pumps, elevators, cars—even our refrigerators.

By not making too many or too strict assumptions about how the web should be used, it remains flexible and adaptable. These qualities have allowed it to outperform closed technologies like Flash and Silverlight.

With the web’s growth comes new features to better accommodate its … Read article “The possibilities of the color-adjust property”

Not everyone uses a mouse to browse the internet. If you’re reading this post on a smartphone, this is obvious! What’s also worth pointing out is that there are other forms of input that people use to get things done. With these forms of input comes the need for focus styles.… Read article “Focusing on Focus Styles”

The semantics inherent in HTML elements tell us what we’re supposed to use them for. Need a heading? You’ll want a heading element. Want a paragraph? Our trusty friend <p></p> is here, loyal as ever. Want a download? Well, you’re going to want… hmm.

What best describes a download? Is it a triggered action, and therefore should be in the domain of the <button></button> element? Or is it a destination, and therefore best described using an <a></a> element?… Read article “Building a Good Download… Button?”

Much like their physical counterparts, the materials we use to build websites have purpose. To use them without understanding their strengths and limitations is irresponsible. Nobody wants to live in an poorly-built house. So why are poorly-built websites acceptable?

In this post, I’m going to address WAI-ARIA, and how misusing it can do more harm than good.… Read article “ARIA is Spackle, Not Rebar”