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Shaun Conner

@sconner.net

2.8K followers 220 following 1.2K posts

Head of Accessibility, GOVUK One Login @ GDS. Previously: Monzo, HMRC, and the NHS. Views my own.

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · Nov 11

I created a web accessibility and inclusion starter pack. Comment with your favourite accessibility folks, and I'll add them to the list. #a11y

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 1h

You might think you've built something accessible, but sometimes the tools have other ideas!

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 1h

It can be very easy to disable your users. It's not something we'd have picked up on either during any design consultancy. Luckily, we discovered it during an audit, but it serves as a great example of why manual accessibility testing is necessary.

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 1h

This meant that all those users became blocked, because their reference numbers were incorrect every time. And when the page threw an error, the error message was also useless, because it instructed them to input '10' followed by the reference.

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 1h

Now you might be thinking, well, what is inaccessible with that? Screen readers were announcing IX as roman numerals by default. Whenever screen reader users tabbed into the example, they'd hear "10" followed by the rest of the ref.

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 1h

It can be easy to oversimplify accessibility to things like colour contrast and heading levels. Both are important, but in the wild, much of what we encounter is far more complex. I was reminded of an issue we found while I was at HMRC. A service was using a reference number that started with XI.

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 2h

But what an excellent example of great leadership. Creating a culture where folks have the confidence, enthusiasm, and psychological safety to step up and take on more. You're doing great!

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 6h

Get the Christmas tree up!

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 7h

It's been particularly useful to see the percentage of issues in different statuses, such as 'done', 'backlog', etc. I now also have a view to see things that were closed or have been on a backlog for a certain period of time. It will also update once an hour, so the data is always current.

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 8h

Now that I have different views and filters set up, I have been able to generate metrics on things like average time to resolve and issues resolved month over month, etc. All this data, which I previously didn't have, is incredibly useful.

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 8h

Recently discovered Jira Cloud for Sheets. With just a few clicks and some basic JQL, I've been able to retrieve every single accessibility ticket from every board in our instance, providing me with a full view of what's happening and where. You can probably do this in Jira, but I hate using it.

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 6d

Cheers, mate!

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 6d

I've just sat for ages in the garden, camera on its tripod, patiently waiting for a break in the clouds to catch the first supermoon of the year. It didn't disappoint!

A crystal clear picture of a full supermoon.

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 7d

Thanks, Ann. I understand from research I've seen that many Welsh folk go between English and Welsh content. The problem is that if it were a screen reader user, the Welsh content would announce complete nonsense that wouldn't make any sense to the user.

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Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 7d

Interested to know how others, particularly those working on apps for the public sector, have approached this problem.

Shaun Conner @sconner.net · 7d

VoiceOver on iOS doesn't have a Welsh voice synthesiser, so Welsh content is announced in English, making it completely inaccessible to Welsh screen reader users. Essentially, Welsh screen reader users who do not speak English will not be able to use any iOS apps. Are there any workarounds?

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