UX Archives - Sheri Byrne-Haber's Blog

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Why Separate Guest and Logged In States Create Accessibility Barriers

Do you have differing logged-in and logged-out experiences for your users? Do you merge the two when someone logs in? If you don’t, you are creating accessibility barriers. People often think of accessibility as something that happens on the surface…

AI-generated image of five interior doors, all partially open

Why You Need to Close Open Objects When Users Navigate Away

Imagine opening a dropdown, expanding an accordion, or opening a dialog box, then following a link that loads a new object. The old object is still programmatically marked as open. That means it lingers in the accessibility tree. If you…

Regaining your accessibility spark

All jobs have up and down cycles. Try these steps to get back on the upswing when you are on a down cycle in your accessibility journey. Authors note: Because of Medium’s refusal to address its accessibility issues for both authors…

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Why accessibility bugs are a good thing and how to handle them

Hint: “fix the bug” is probably the least important item on the list It is incredibly common when I do accessibility podcasts, I am asked, “what does accessibility success look like to you?” I, perhaps oddly, count beginning to get…

Screenshot of Sheri Byrne-Haber’s medium home page with new three column format

An accessibility review of the new Medium site

At the beginning of February, Medium launched a new format. I have highlighted Medium’s lack of concern over severe accessibility problems in a previous article and many LinkedIn posts and private messages to people who work for Medium. These issues entirely block…

Many accessibility problems would be solved if business did three things

Three adjustments to the way we do business could vastly improve the world for people with disabilities I’ll be honest, most of the time, when I do panels or talks on accessibility, I recycle a fair amount of old material.…

The ADA lawsuit settlement involving an accessibility overlay

What the settlement agreement included, and what does it mean for the industry? Eyebobs’ is an online glasses company that was sued for not meeting accessibility requirements by a blind plaintiff in January 2021. “Accessibility” refers to whether or not…

Settlement Agreement template with signareu

What the Department of Justice / Rite AID settlement agreement means to designers

TL;DR — if you don’t pay close attention to accessibility, you are effectively committing professional malpractice. On November 1, 2021, the Department of Justice published a settlement agreement it entered into with the nationwide pharmacy chain Rite Aid specifically concerning the inability…

A tale of two retailers — a disability inclusion story

Lowes went all in to include deaf employees. Sprouts Market did the opposite. Here is how that has worked out for both companies. Sprouts Farmer’s Market Three d/Deaf applicants applied for jobs at Sprouts and were selected for interviews. The…

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Can I go to beta with an inaccessible product?

The more important question is, why would you want to do that? I get asked the question, “Can I go to beta without being accessible?” frequently. This question usually comes outside of my employment situation, most often from companies that…

Category: UX