Tag Archives: Accessibility

Switching to Android full-time – an experiment

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Marco

A few weeks ago, I decided to conduct an experiment. I wanted to determine if Android 4.2.2 “Jelly Bean” was finally ready for me to switch to full-time, away from an iPhone. Background I’ve been an iPhone user for four … Continue reading →

Posted in Mobile, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 31 Comments

Sometimes you have to use illegal WAI-ARIA to make stuff work

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Marco

In this blog post, I’d like to recap an experience I just had while trying to apply some accessibility enhancements to the NoodleApp app.net client. The problem NoodleApp uses keyboard shortcuts to allow users to switch back and forth between … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, ARIA | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Five years at Mozilla

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Marco

Exactly on this day five years ago, on Monday, December 3, 2007, I started work at Mozilla as the QA engineer for Accessibility. I’d like to take this small anniversary to look back and look ahead. When I started, Mozilla … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Mozilla | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A top 100 killer web accessibility blog

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Marco

Last night, I received an e-mail from Jimmy Atkinson, owner of the Web Hosting Database, who informed me that this blog is now listed in the 100 killer web accessibility resources, blogs, forums and tutorials article. I must admit I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Accessibility – what is it good for?

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Marco

There are those days when you watch a discussion unfold on Twitter, and a point is reached where a statement is made that leaves you more or less speechless for a while. In this case, it was a discussion started … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility | Tagged | 31 Comments

Support for TalkBack’s Jelly Bean Explore By Touch now in Firefox for Android nightlies

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Marco

This is just a quick shout-out to you early adopters that, as of the August 22, 2012 nightly build of Firefox for Android, support for Explore By Touch, Jelly Bean style, has landed and is now working. If you use … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox, Mobile | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Are web apps accessible enough to replace desktop applications any time soon?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Marco

I know, reflections on things usually happen at years-end time, but to be honest, this blog post has been in my head for the last two-and-a-half years, and has thus “seen” a number of year-ends, so I felt that it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Firefox for Android Nightly builds now with Explore By Touch

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Marco

As of the June 28, 2012 build of Firefox for Android nightly builds, the Explore By Touch feature of the Ice Cream Sandwich version of TalkBack is supported in web content in addition to the already supported browser user interface. … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox, Mobile | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

How to get WebVisum working again

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Marco

Update: As of some time this lunch time in Europe, WebVisum is back in full working business. The instructions to edit one’s hosts file to point to the IP address for the WebVisum service directly has, therefore, been removed from … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Quick Navigation keys now in nightly builds of Firefox native for Android

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Marco

Yes, you heard correctly! Accessible Firefox for Android nightly builds, as of June 13, have quick navigation keys that those who are blind are most likely familiar with from the desktop screen reader world! In short, these are single letter … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox, Mobile | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Accessibility in Firefox for Android – Some more technical details

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Marco

In my previous blog post, I focused on the user-facing aspects of the new accessibility features we’re currently building into Firefox for Android. This blog post is about the more technical details of this support. First, the fact that we’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Mobile | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

First round of accessibility support for Android in mobile Firefox

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Marco

Lots of exciting stuff happening at Mozilla these days! The accessibility team is ramping up its efforts on multiple fronts. I am pleased to announce that mobile Firefox, code-named Fennec, nightly builds now have a first implementation of accessibility for … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox, Mobile | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Initial VoiceOver support now in Firefox nightly builds for Mac OS X

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Marco

Yes, many of you have been waiting for this to happen, and now it’s finally there! From the April 30, 2012 Nightly build onwards, Firefox for the Mac comes with VoiceOver support turned on by default. All you have to … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Apple, Firefox | Tagged , , , | 43 Comments

Hiding content untangled: Hiding vs. moving out of the visible viewport

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Marco

This blog post is once again prompted by something I encountered in the wild. The other day, I was testing browserid.org‘s account manager for accessibility and encountered some inconsistencies in keyboard navigation and screen reader usage. For one, there are … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

Progress on Mac accessibility work in Firefox

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Marco

This is an update for all who are interested in our Mac accessibility implementation. After I blogged about this topic last time, we entered into a bit of a rough time having to do with the text interface of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Apple, Firefox | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

If you use the WAI-ARIA role “application”, please do so wisely!

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Marco

This goes out to all web developers out there reading this blog and implementing widgets and other rich content in HTML, CSS and JavaScript! If you think of using the WAI-ARIA role “application” in your code, please do so with … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, ARIA | Tagged , , , , | 26 Comments

New in accessibility in Firefox 10

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Marco

Firefox 10 has just been released. Here is a recap of the things that were fixed in accessibility for this release. First and foremost, we managed to fix a whole range of bugs related to focus reporting. For more details, … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Accessibility on the Mac: Progress report Jan 30, 2012

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Marco

After my blog post about the accessibility of Firefox on Mac OS X ramping up stirred up so much interest (thanks again to everyone who commented!), I thought you’d like to hear a bit about the progress we’ve made since … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Apple, Firefox | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Would you like to show us what assistive technology you use Firefox with?

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Marco

For a while now, Firefox has had the ability to collect anonymous usage data. Internally, we call this telemetry. Recently, we also started to incorporate statistics about the way the accessibility features of Firefox are being used. Our newest addition … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Firefox, NVDA, Testing | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Accessible Firefox on Mac OS X – things are ramping up!

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Marco

This is to announce that work on a VoiceOver accessible version of Firefox for the Mac OS X platform has been gaining some attention recently, and that very promising progress has been made in the last month! Hub Figuière, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple, Firefox | Tagged , , | 22 Comments