iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 16h

Build in accessibility from the start! Whether digital, physical or policy, if you include accessibility considerations from the start, you not only have a more considered and accessible approach, you avoid last minute panicked retrofits and redesigns. If it's not accessible, it's not finished.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 22h

Cognitive load refers to how much working memory or short-term memory someone is using at a time. Minimizing the cognitive load it takes to use your site makes it more accessible for people with cognitive disabilities. Limit what you're asking users to remember to use your site.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 16h

Alt text should be included on any image you post, but if you are posting about wellbeing, disability, accessibility or inclusivity, you need to remember to use alt text on your images - it really undermines your message if you don't.

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MySight York @mysightyork.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Our new accessible website is now live as part of a soft launch! We're carrying out final checks and gathering feedback before our official launch on 14th October. Read more about the soft launch of our new website and view the website: mysightyork.org/our-new-acce...

mysightyork.org

Our New Accessible Website Is Now Live – Ahead of Official Launch – MySight York

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

In charts and data visualizations, avoid overwhelming people with information. Keep the design simple and clear. Avoid animations as they can be distracting and disorienting. If you must include some type of movement or animation, provide a way for people to turn it off.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It's welcome week - so welcome new students! (Are there students on Bluesky? Maybe mature students...) We'll be in the library, in LFA 144 in the Fairhurst building today, helping promote The Distractibles peer support group, so do pop by to say hi, find out more or chat about accessibility!

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Consistent layout makes websites easier to navigate and understand as it helps users learn what elements to expect and in what order. This is especially helpful to low vision users or blind users using a screen reader. It also helps those with cognitive and learning disabilities.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This is a great project - and we're especially pleased to see the prototype pump clip in the cover photo! (It's the purple plastic logo item Kaan is holding!). The prototype clip was designed by our Creativity Lab colleague and 3D printed in Yorcreate, in @uoylibrary.bsky.social.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

When considering rainbow text, don't forget to consider readability and legibility. Text filled with rainbows can be difficult to read. Same with complex rainbow backgrounds. Putting each word or letter in a different color of the rainbow could force readers to work harder.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

If you as trainer struggle to follow it, it's not going to work for your audience either! Word clouds can be difficult to parse at the best of times and are typically inaccessible to anyone using a screen reader.

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Richard A Carter @richardacarter.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Please do share and complete Mariana's survey of sounds you have found culturally / personally important, wherever you have lived in the world! As noted, if you, or know others, who have lived in Latin America, Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Ukraine, their responses would be especially welcome 🙂

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If you leave all physical accessibility considerations like ramps and lifts until a building is finished, the retrofit can be difficult (and costly). With both physical and digital infrastructure, it's much easier to build in accessibility from the start. If it isn't accessible, it isn't finished.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

University of York teaching staff - still places left - this is TOMORROW! (Wednesday 16th)

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Also a prompt to share the accessibility reminder that if you do use the "beautify my slides" option, it will output as image, even if the original slide was fully formatted. This loss of formatting will make the slide inaccessible to those who rely on screen reader software.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Uni of York staff - you can still join us this Wednesday (16th) for Preparing to Teach Visually Impaired Students, an in-person session running 2-4pm, in the Fairhurst @uoylibrary.bsky.social to help staff prepare to teach students with low or no vision: book your place: forms.gle/8rVPsCZK4iVP...

forms.gle

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A reminder that the new all-singing, all-dancing* streamlined @uoylibrary.bsky.social reading lists guide is out! It covers everything staff need to do to create or edit a reading list and discusses accessible text provision: * neither sings nor dances subjectguides.york.ac.uk/reading-lists

subjectguides.york.ac.uk

Subject Guides: Reading Lists: a guide for staff: Reading Lists

Includes how-to guides on using reading lists for teaching, plus best practice and policy

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Tade Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Listening to an audiobook is reading*. Why is this even a question? [*I don't want to engage the source of this consternation.]

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Just reminding University of York teaching staff that we have two training events next week - an online reading lists training session and an in person workshop to support teaching visually impaired students - see the thread for details!

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Accessibility awareness and training are good first steps, but they aren't the end. Teams need to create accessibility policies and strategies based on that training and newfound knowledge. Managers must empower people to enforce policies to make sure everyone does their part.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Still more work in the next couple of weeks, but the library lounge area is open again!

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Vestibular disorders affect people's balance as well as their visual perception of their world around them. Don't make animations, sliders, videos, or rapid movement start automatically, as autoplaying elements could trigger a bad reaction in people who have vestibular disorders.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Color contrast is the difference in brightness between foreground and background colors. You can check your color contrasts with the WebAIM Color Contrast Checker to determine if people with low vision can tell the colors apart and see your content. webaim.org/resources/co...

webaim.org

WebAIM: Contrast Checker

Search:

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Uni of York teaching staff, please check out this thread of upcoming training, run with @uoylibrary.bsky.social, to help you get set for an accessible start to the academic year!

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

University of York teaching staff - let us help you get prepped for the start of the academic year!

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Teaching staff! It's September and the start of the new academic year is looming... but we're here to help you get off to an accessible start! First up: help getting your reading lists sorted. This will save you time, effort and copyright reporting, as well as improving accessibility for students 1/

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The same photo could appear on three different pages and require different alt text for each instance. The alt text for an image can vary, depending on the context of the image, its role on the page, and the intended message.

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Ellen Forget @ellenforget.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

One month until abstracts are due for this special issue "Accessibility in Digital Publishing", which I am co-editing with John Maxwell. "Publishing" is broadly defined, and we're open to a range of submissions. See link in quoted post for more details. Short wishlist in the next post.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This is always hard to balance. The principle of "nothing about us without us" is so important but in turn that shouldn't mean that individuals from marginalised groups become solely responsible for addressing that marginalisation. Co-creation is important but inclusion is everyone's responsibility.

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Mariana J López @marianajlopez.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

As part of my work on sound heritage, I'm running a short survey on sounds (not music) that are important personally/culturally to people from different parts of the world. It's available in different languages. If you can contribute and share the survey with others please do ❤️ tinyurl.com/2twuzpfd

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

You don't necessarily need to say "image of" in your alt text for users to know it's an image. Screen readers will announce that it's an image. But it can help readers to specify if it's a hand-drawn image, Polaroid, infographic, screenshot, chart, map, diagram, or so on.

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RNIB @rnib.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

If you aren’t currently making your social media content accessible, you should give it a go. No one expects it to be perfect. Progress is better than nothing at all. We’ve got a handy guide to get you started: rnib.in/AccessibleSocialMedia

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Do not rely on the A.I.-generated alt text in Facebook or Instagram. The result is vague and useless, like "may be an image of food and text," and "may be an image of outdoors." These do nothing to give users the context and content of an image.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Instructions for forms should appear at the beginning of the form. Some users may not notice instructions if they appear at the end of the form. If a form field requires data in a certain format (for instance, a date field that requires “day/month/year"), provide examples.

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Martin Nutbeem @martinnutbeem.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Simple steps to make stuff accessible takes no time and benefits so many in wider society. [Bangs the "use alt text" gong]

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RNIB @rnib.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

If you’re one of the thousands who did sneak a peek at the eclipse without any safety measures and you’re now experiencing changes in your vision, please go get your eyes checked with an optometrist (optician).

A screenshot of Google's most searched terms relating to eye health after the eclipse.
"Top queries, United Kingdom, past month.
1. Solar eclipse hurt eyes.
2. Solar eclipse eyes hurt.
3. Solar eclipse.
4. Eyes hurt solar eclipse."

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University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Great to see so many pearls of wisdom on here for people getting their A-level results today... We just hope they reach all three of the Bluesky users young enough to be doing A-levels.

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Katherine Stephan @msiowaintheuk.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

My quarterly message to the void after witnessing a paywalled article about open research: if you're writing about open research, please make it open. Always. You have choices. Choose better. Don't know your options? Start with @doaj.bsky.social (and filter by No APC) if you're short on cash.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Hyperlink text should make sense when read out of context. Screen reader users can navigate from link to link, and can listen to links in a list. When navigating this way, only the link is read. So "click here" or "read more" won't make sense.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

You might personally choose not to use AI, but you might not have a choice as to whether your team or office uses it. If your organization is using AI to write alt text, always review it to make sure it's accurate and appropriate. AI won't necessarily understand how or why an image is being used.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Alt text has to convey what you want someone to take from an image if they can't see it. Depending on the context, this doesn't have to be lengthy and can have room for whimsy or humour but ultimately it has to convey the information from the image that would be otherwise lost!

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University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

A couple of unexpected, unexciting but nevertheless important to note building issues: 1) The Burton will close at 5pm on the 30th for essential works. We expect it to reopen 31st as usual 2) All the toilets in the Morrell will close now until the 31st also, again for essential works 😬

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

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Martin Nutbeem @martinnutbeem.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Accessibility testing the VLE. All fine till the screen reader. A tale as old as time.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Chartability is a resource to help make data visualizations and charts more accessible. It's organized into principles with testable criteria aimed at making sure people with disabilities are able to access data. chartability.fizz.studio

chartability.fizz.studio

Chartability

Chartability is a set of heuristics (testable questions) for ensuring that data visualizations, systems, and interfaces are accessible. Chartability is organized into principles with testable…

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Overlays are widgets or technologies that promise to improve a site's accessibility with third-party source code. More than 1,000 accessibility advocates and web developers have signed an open letter to explain the limitations and dangers of these products. overlayfactsheet.com

overlayfactsheet.com

https://overlayfactsheet.com/en/

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

For screen readers to recognize headings, heading text can't just be body text or normal text that's been made to look bigger and bolder. It must be formatted as a heading. In Microsoft Word and Google Docs, this can be done in the styles box. In HTML, use the tags h1 through h6.

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