Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Disabled In Computing

@disabledincs.bsky.social

39 followers 47 following 15 posts

Resources and mutual support for disabled, neurodivergent, and/or chronically ill folks in computing. Access - Equity - Support. RS≠endorse. #A11y

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 5

Welcome! 👋🏻 This is Disabled in Computing: a meeting zone for all disabled, neurodivergent, and/or chronically ill folks in computing. We're here to amplify those in computing research and practice, support each other, and break through the isolation of disability in computing.

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Adrian Roselli @aardrian.bsky.social · 7d

“A threat model for accessibility on the web”
alice.boxhall.au/articles/a-t...

A deep, well-researched & cited piece detailing systemic failures down the web stack (standards bodies, browsers vendors, etc) which marginalize #accessibility and its voices — but with proposed solutions.

#a11y

A threat model for accessibility on the web - Alice

A explanation of the primary threat to accessibility on the web, and a call to action for the web standards community

alice.boxhall.au

32 65

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · Sep 3

Looking for a digital accessibility job? Or looking to hire someone for an accessibility role? A11yjobs is a digital accessibility job board.

www.a11yjobs.com

Find Digital Accessibility Jobs on A11yjobs.com

Discover top jobs in digital accessibility, including web accessibility, ARIA, WCAG, Section 508, ADA compliance, and more. Join the A11y community with roles on a11yjobs.com.

www.a11yjobs.com

14 23

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · Sep 3

Very relatable.

pikaole @pikaole.bsky.social · Sep 3

☕️

Two-panel comic

First panel
There's a laptop and a mountain of paperwork.

Second panel
An axolotl is looking at it, doing nothing
but just drinking coffee.

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

deconspray @deconspray.bsky.social · Jun 21

If your organization relies on PDFs, the tools you use to create them can make or break accessibility. I explore which popular applications produce accessible PDFs, and which fall short.

www.dennisdeacon.com/web/accessib...

#PDFAccessibility #PDFs #PDF #DigitalAccessibility #A11y #Accessibility

Applications that Create PDFs & Accessibility Output - Dennis Deacon

"It takes two to tango" when it comes to Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Some source applications do a better job at generating accessible PDF files than others. Following is a roundup of…

www.dennisdeacon.com

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 20

Credit to @amyko.phd for co-authoring this book.

1 1

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 20

I recommend this book bookish.press/tac

It’s geared more towards educators but has great resources for any audience.

Teaching Accessible Computing

For computing to work for everyone, it must be accessible to everyone. Alas, it is not: people with disabilities in mobility, vision, hearing, learning, attention, and more regularly face software tha...

bookish.press

1 1

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Stef Walter @stephaniewalter.bsky.social · May 16

I Broke the Disabled Button. Homer Gaines explains we need to be mindful of over-engineering a solution, especially when it’s about accessibility. Screen reader users are used to VoiceOver announcing “dimmed” for disabled buttons. Changing it, will break their experience.

I Broke the Disabled Button

accessibility + ux

rightbadcode.com

2 8

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

steven deobald @deobald.bsky.social · May 15

it's global accessibility awareness day and georges stavracas has posted a lovely celebration of all the work that's gone into gnome #a11y so far - and a look to the road ahead:

feaneron.com/2025/05/15/i...

a lot of work to do but there's also a lot of solid work already underway 💙

In celebration of accessibility – feaneron

feaneron.com

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Deque Systems @deque.com · May 15

Imagine a future where you ask your IDE to make your component accessible—and then reliable fixes automatically appear, ready to apply. With our new axe MCP Server, digital accessibility will happen directly in your software development workflow.

Learn more: www.deque.com/blog/one-cli... #a11y

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Square Eye @squareeye.com · May 15

Most PDFs online aren’t accessible—and for legal websites, that’s a growing risk.

For #GAAD, we’ve written a guide on how to create accessible PDFs, and why web pages are usually the better solution.

👉 squareeye.com/making-pdfs-ac...

#Accessibility #LegalTech #PDFaccessibility

Making PDFs accessible – and why webpages are better | Square Eye

With new EU accessibility rules approaching in 2025, it’s time to review how accessible your PDFs really are. This article explains how to create compliant PDFs—and why publishing content as web pages is often a better, more inclusive choice.

squareeye.com

1 2

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Frank Elavsky ⌁ @frank.computer · May 5

I'm officially announcing a massive collaboration that I've been able to participate in: evaluating the accessibility of the Python visualization library, @bokeh.org! 🎉

In collab with folks from @quansight.com and @anacondainc.bsky.social, we present 76 documented findings plus our summary here:

Bokeh Accessibility Audit Summary

Findings and recommendations to make Bokeh tools and plots more accessible

bokeh-a11y-audit.readthedocs.io

1 17 52

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 13

Yeah, it’s not perfect and definitely requires some effort to get setup. Particularly signing up for a Mistral Account and plugging in an API key. I wonder if it would work well if someone built a frontend for it.

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 13

Thank you for keeping the post up and being open to learning. I hope others learn too.

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 13

While it is true that disability is the one minority that most people will join one day, many of us are asking that euphemisms such as “differently abled” stop being used. You can read more about why in this post:

thenoraproject.ngo/nora-notes-b...

#SayDisabled

The Harmful Reality of Disability Euphemisms: Why You Shouldn’t Use Phrases like “Special Needs” — The Nora Project

By Katie Carr “Special needs,” “handicapable,” and “differently-abled” are just a few euphemisms that have been used to describe disabled folks. But why do so many people create these complex, round-...

thenoraproject.ngo

1 2

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 13

There’s a lot to be said for using vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS for sites that are more usable and require less maintenance.

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 13

If you are using OCR, Mistral AI has the best OCR algorithm I’ve seen yet. Unfortunately it’s only available as an API, but someone made a tool to convert from OCR to HTML running in Google Co-Lab.

github.com/coldplazma/A...

GitHub - coldplazma/Accessible-OCR-Mistral-: A Python Notebook working with Mistral's API to process a PDF document into an accessible HTML document

A Python Notebook working with Mistral's API to process a PDF document into an accessible HTML document - GitHub - coldplazma/Accessible-OCR-Mistral-: A Python Notebook working with Mistral&#3...

github.com

1 1

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 13

I wonder if the new GTK update will help make things better for some users or just get broken by upstream again.

blog.gtk.org/2025/05/12/a...

An accessibility update – GTK Development Blog

blog.gtk.org

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Kai Pepler @kaipepler.com · May 13

Really great to see big companies like Apple continue to develop new forms of assistive technology. #a11y

Apple unveils powerful accessibility features coming later this year

Apple today announced new accessibility features coming later this year, including Accessibility Nutrition Labels.

www.apple.com

1 2

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

iaaporg.bsky.social @iaaporg.bsky.social · May 12

Every time a user can't navigate a website, fill out a form, or access content because of poor design, a barrier has been built.

The root of the problem? It often starts in our classrooms.

Learn more: https://f.mtr.cool/rdokysafjj

#A11Y #Accessibility

When design excludes: Why accessibility must be taught in tech and design classrooms

When a routine software update rolled out for a leading banking app last year, a person with visual impairment found himself suddenly locked out of his finances

f.mtr.cool

3 5

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) @autisticadvocacy.org · May 12

The proposed budget reconciliation bill makes massive cuts to Medicaid & ACA. The CBO says that at least 13.7 million people lose coverage if the proposed cuts pass.

We’ll have an action alert later today. Meanwhile, call and tell Congress: protect Medicaid! autisticadvocacy.org/2025/04/tell...

Tell Your Legislators: Protect Medicaid! - Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Table of Contents Words to Know What is this Action Alert? What is Medicaid? What services does Medicaid help people get? What is happening with Medicaid right now? Medicaid and the Budget Process The...

autisticadvocacy.org

6 12

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 11

We use @buffer.com since it supports more alt text more thoroughly than other platforms.

1 1

Reposted by Disabled In Computing

Craig Abbott @craigabbott.co.uk · May 11

A few days ago, Deque launched axe Assistant, an AI chatbot trained specifically for accessibility. I spent a few days playing with it and a wild Saturday night writing up my findings for anyone that’s interested. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/deque-a...

#ai #axeAssistant #accessibility #a11y

Deque Axe Assistant - First impressions

Testing Deque's axe Assistant for accuracy and ability.

www.craigabbott.co.uk

1 8 27

Disabled In Computing @disabledincs.bsky.social · May 10

Many people who use screen readers and keyboards to navigate Bluesky are reporting accessibility issues with keyboard focus. Please take a moment to leave a comment on this issue on GitHub if you have the opportunity:

github.com/bluesky-soci...

#A11y #accessibility

Screen reader · Issue #1628 · bluesky-social/social-app

Please make app and site accessible for screen readers? it seems to be a mess as folks using those tell us

github.com

1 1