Accessibility

[dendron-bot]

Summary

Make sure Dendron is accessible to all our users

Lookup

Initial Tasks

• guidelines for accessibility
• gaps in current tooling

Recurring Tasks

• TBD

Future Tasks

• TBD

Open Questions and Ideas

• the dendron team is (currently) bandwidth constrained and its not likely we can make significant progress on major accessibility features - what can we do at a smaller scale that can still have impact?

[ScriptAutomate]

We could use tools like pa11y as a way to try and identify issues to tackle?

• What in the next.js template could use a11y-based improvements
• What in our base content (source markdown) can be updated, etc.
• This could be a further-down-the-road extension to the conversation around docs quality coming from Ideas for docs CLI / CI toolchain automation and extensions #2397

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Some other ideas, these are from @ryan-p-randall :

• I wonder whether we’d want to build in some best practices for image accessibility, using a tool like:
  https://github.com/krasimir/gifffer (javascript to stop gif autoplay)
  • https://css-tricks.com/pause-gif-details-summary/ (this pauses gifs using css)
  • https://css-tricks.com/revisiting-prefers-reduced-motion/ (this involves the OS or browser setting)
• I was thinking of this because I happened to read https://alistapart.com/article/accessibility-for-vestibular/ and also remember seeing someone in Discord discuss putting images in tables for layout… and using tables for layout really isn’t great from an accessibility perspective
• Maybe there’s a way to apply a element to most images that also applies good a11y practices, but still allow users to override those default styles if they prefer?
• Maybe glean from https://www.a11yproject.com/checklist/ for a checklist to work through?

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We mostly use gifs that have to be played via Loom embeds. I think we have gifs that I have created without Loom using Linux tools, so they aren't hosted by Loom. I should see whether it is possible to upload existing gifs to Loom, and embed via Loom? Would be a way for me to convert certain gifs over

[ScriptAutomate]

With the above being said, I should add: I do think it would be beneficial for Dendron to have a pause gifs functionality (if possible) in the published output, as this would then benefit anyone using Dendron for publishing (while using gifs), and not just users of tools like Loom.

[ryan-p-randall]

Yes, for Dendron's own site, I think that making videos is probably easiest. Apparently video files tend to be smaller than long gifs, as well as having start/stop/pause controls.

My idea about having adding "pause gifs" functionality was more about adding that for publishing beyond Dendron's own documentation, as ScriptAutomate mentions above.

I just saw this Accessibility Testing Best Practices in CI/CD post. It mentions libraries like pa11y and Axe-Core, and linters. I'm sure ScriptAutomate knows more about all this than I do, so I'm including this link in case it's useful.