#we wouldn’t be able to even aim for this final goal without everyone’s generous assistance <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[alchemocha]

Help support us!

As the goal above says, my partner and I have successfully made it to Canada and have been living together for 2 months now. The next step in our life and her citizenship is to, get Canadian citizenship. To do this we’re going the spousal sponsorship route, and need to cover the fee. If you are able and would like to help us, you can share or donate above!

Other ways to help us reach our goal and support us:

Commissions!

Buy some prints of my art!

[remmushound]

Bay/rise 24!! Sorry it ends quite suddenly; the fighting went on for longer than I anticipated. @selfindulgenz @brightlotusmoon @errorfreak88

Content warning!! Panic attack and violence are featured!!

Four solid turtles landed with solid thuds on the rooftop. Leo was thankful for the quick approach of sunset that cast the city into the shadows they learned to live by. One quick look around the rooftop revealed nothing out of the ordinary as far as Leo could see.

“Thought you said she’d be here Don?” Leo sighed. It wasn’t that he disliked going out of his way, not when the life of an April was at risk, but they couldn’t risk coming out when the city was still active.

“She should have been.” Donnie whispered, checking his wristband as his forehead wrinkled in concentration, “I don’t have footage of her leaving…”

“Well, you see a teenage girl anywhere?” Raph growled.

“Man, I was excited!” Mikey snapped his fingers, “This would be like the third chick I know! Hope she thinks I’m cute!”

“Who wouldn’t think you’re cute, Mike?” Raph snarled.

“Aw, thanks bro!”

“Guys!” Donnie said, his goggles now pulled over his eyes as he looked around the area. “I think I figured out our issue.”

The air around them was filled with the stuff. Like pink cloud of cotton candy betraying the faintest traces of Dimension X. He gave the goggles over to Leo so the leader could observe for himself. Leo became unusually quiet as he eyed the strange cloud, then gave the googles back to Donnie and stalked off to the corner of the roof to get what little privacy he could to mull over his thoughts.

“What’s Samurai Jack over there bummed about?” Raph huffed, his voice betraying the concern for his brother.

“There’s traces of Dimension X here.” Donnie explained.

“So? We already knew Bubblicious was back.” Raph shrugged.

“Yeah— we knew he was in his dimension, not that he could get into ours. If he can come through again, then he might be trying to bring the technodrome through.”

“So? We beat him once!”

“And Mikey was nearly cracked like a walnut! I’d rather not go through that whole situation again— it hasn’t even been a year!”

“Well we know what to expect this time so it shouldn’t be that difficult!”

Donnie opened his mouth, but then quietly reserved. “Leo— I— if Krang’s in the city still, I could probably track him?”

“What are the chances of that?” Leo asked, almost imperceptibly soft.

“Uh… not very likely… but if there’s even a small chance then…”

“Then you should try. Go ahead, then.”

Donnie nodded and set his tracker to work. 

The wait was the longest ten minutes of Mikey’s life. Granted, every minute usually passed like an eternity to him, but it was always a lot harder when he got like this. Always without warning, it could seize him and squeeze him tight like some icky, cold octopus. Or maybe it was like… the thing he couldn’t think of. Maybe he was still there and that’s why he couldn’t breath and that’s why his chest felt tight and painful and why the world was suddenly spinning circles. He wanted to sit, so he did.

“Hey bro, you good?” 

Raph’s touch was innocent enough, just a simple wrap of his arm around Mikey’s shell and a gentle squeeze, but for Mikey it was agony. It was like fire shot through his body and he just needed to run because if he didn't then his mind was screaming at him that he would die—

Donnie’s announcement came just in time to save Mikey’s life. “Hey Leo, I got a hit!”

That caught Leo’s attention. “Great. Where to next?”

***

“I’m only going to ask this once more. Where are the turtles?!” Baron Draxum demanded, his voice booming with a robotic enhancement.

“Last I saw, they were in Nunya.”

“Nunya?”

“NUNYA BUISNESS!”

Cassandra laughed and pointed at Baron, making the yokai glare back at her with angry eyes. “You walked right into that one! Just like ligma!”

“Ligma? Who’s ligma?”

“LIGMA BALLS!”

Both Cassandra and April laughed that time. April’s eyes were forever trained on the orb. April had long since given up on escaping the restraints but she was still bubbling with fury at seeing her precious orb in the grip of someone so villainous. Cassandra had the artifact strapped safely to her belt. Yet still, for some reason, April laughed along with the foot soldier that could destroy everything she protected at the slightest whim.

“You are really getting on my nerves, little girl…” Draxum leaned over April with a threatening scowl, his lion-like features visible even through the new armor that covered him. 

“Why are you doing this?” April knew what she was doing. She had spent so long with Donatello that the drama and the tears came to her like the flick of a switch, the emotions on the outside not at all matching the inside. Outside, she was a mess of tears and distress while inside her mind was calculated and almost cold as she considered every possible escape. “I thought you changed…”

Draxum laughed. A cold, chilling laugh with no warmth in at all. No care for the fate of the teen in front of him. Caring only for his own self-preservation and willing to toss everything and everyone aside to achieve the goals in his mind.

“You seriously think thousands of years of being evil and I could switch to being all sunshine and daisies because some pathetic failure of an experiment asked nicely?”

April couldn’t hide her rage, giving a battle cry as she tried to lunge out of her seat. Baron Draxum pulled away at the last minute and laughed as April topped over, unable to catch herself due to her restraints and slamming her face hard into the cold concrete. Her war shout turned into a painful cry as the impact reverberated inside her skull and rattled her to her core. It took a few seconds of numbness before pain returned to her tenfold.

“Oops.” Baron Draxum laughed, “Sorry.” He laughed and raised his hoof to give her another solid blow, but the impact never landed.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

Baron Draxum looked up just as a massive figure came from the sky in a flip, a powerful kick landing on his outstretched leg and making the sheep bleat in a pain of his own. All April could see from her position on the floor were a set of massive green feet, but she didn't have to wait long before the chair was lifted effortlessly off of the ground and back upright, her binds undone with a quick flash of a pocketknife.

“Hi, I’m Michelangelo.” The massive green giant gave a dopey smile and pointed to his orange mask. “Like, don’t be scared dudette I’m totally here to be your prince in shining armor! Uh. With no armor!”

“Huh. Okay.” April had seen weirder.

Like she were little more than a sack of potatoes, April was lifted bridal style and carried away from the conflict by the strange mutant calling himself by her friend's name.

“Where’s Krang?” Leo demanded, aiming his katana at what he perceived as a mutant attacker.

Baron Draxum stared curiously. “You must be the Leonardo of this world. Strange. I imagined you smaller!” With the enunciation of the word, Draxum brought a vine down upon the leader and whipped him hard against the soft of his chest, sending ninja flying backward with the force.

Before Draxum could revel in his victory, a bigger force slammed into him and knocked him off his hooves, sending Draxum into the air a few feet. The yokai came down hard but turned his slide into a charge. Raph had his sai ready, deflecting the blows that Draxum tried to land on him while landing a few punches when the opportunity presented itself.

“Master Draxum!” Cassandra was momentarily distracted and Donnie took the opportunity to jump out of his own hiding place and swing his staff toward her. Cass caught onto the attempted attack from the corner of her eye and swung her naginata to intercept the blow, locking her and the mutant into a struggle. 

Cassandra dug her feet into the ground as hard as she could, dragging the turtle as close to the other spar as she dared before putting everything she had into a sudden turn that caught Donnie off balance and sent him stumbling into Raph.

“What the Hell Don—“ Raph lost his focus and Baron Draxum jumped, slamming both hooves hard into the giants chest to send him knocking into Donnie once more. Then a sudden ankle-swipe from Cassandra had them both on the ground tangled in each other's limbs.

Cassandra ran to Draxum’s side and they gave each other a fist bump.

Leo charged back into the fray with a blow aimed at Draxum, but Cassandra caught sight of the attempted attack and shoved her master out of the way.

“Master!” 

Leo’s charge handed hard against her and he didn't stop charging until he had slammed her into the wall.

“Cassandra!” Draxum, despite his years of experience, was dumbfounded by the sudden rescue from the general. He looked behind him when he heard another battle cry and spun to catch Mikey mid-jump, the vines wrapping around Mikey’s shell securely before spinning him around and tossing him carelessly. Mikey ducked into his shell before the impact and didn't come back out.

“You children are getting on my nerves!”

Raph and Donnie untangled themselves from each other finally and charged Draxum as a unit.

“Good teamwork.” Draxum brought his vines neck-level with the charging brothers and knocked them both flat on their carapace with their own momentum.

Cassandra was still too preoccupied with her assault on Leo to lend any assistance to her master. Leo was caught off guard by how weaselly the general was, zooming in and out and up and down and, by the time any of his blows were ready, she was already somewhere else. He didn't want to praise the enemy, but damn was she fast!

“Would you— stop moving?!” Leo was starting to get frustrated.

Finally, the soldier kicked off his chest and landed a short distance away on her hands and feet, shooting up quickly and brandishing her naginata. “FOOT CLAAAAAAAAN!”

She charged Leo again and flashed her weapon, the blade just barely brushing across Leo’s plastron before he was able to pull back and dodge the attack.

“Do not waste all your energy at once, general.” Draxum’s voice was surprisingly steady despite taking on Raph and Donnie’s attacks at once. He deflected another one of Donnie’s attacks and once more the lanky teen stumbled. “You need to work on your balance recovery.” Another attack from Raph that Draxum had been anticipating. “You need to mix up your attacks!”

Raph growled, “STOP GIVING ME ADVICE!”

[chuckling-chemist]

12th Perigee Extra 1: Don’t Think Twice

((This is a of an homage of the #TumblrLogOff protest. Served well with the new KH III song Don’t Think Twice. Kept short and sweet.))

3 a.m. All was still in the temporary hivestem. Mayola finally managed to strip down into a sleek pair of warm sleepwear, perfect for lounging for another solid hour before even thinking about getting any sort of sleep. Unlike Valeba, who somehow managed to conk out on the couch without even making it into the actual respiteblock of the suite. But for Mayola, between the time zone shifts, the odd hours of the dance (they still had hours left in the night, yet brunch was coming at 11 a.m. for those who wanted it? What kind of schedule was that) and the general mood of the whole festivities succeeded in making it impossible for her. Not that such was bad, but any sort of value judgement didn’t change a racing blood pusher.

Ideally, she needed to sleep. That’s what the recuperacoon is for: calm a troll in any emotional state and force them to rest. Were Icasui here, that’s what she’d tell her to do, at least.

Her pink palm husk buzzed loudly on the table, blaring out the lyrics to Cherry Bomb. Valeba jerked awake, grabbing around uselessly for anything on the couch. Mayola snatched it up in one quick swoop, hurriedly approving the call and putting the thing up to her ear before Valeba did something stupid. Like stab her palm husk for waking her up. That would be bad.

“Mayola?” a frantic voice over the phone asked. “Mayola are you there? Pleasssse tell me you’re --”

Pallia? What the hell was Pallia of all trolls doing calling her? Did Aisral need something? “God, yeah. Yeah. I’m here.” Mayola shook her head. “The hell’s going on? Why d’ya sound upset?”

“Is Dontoc sssafe? He hasn’t anssswered his phone in hoursss and I’m getting worried”

Oh. That was all she was worried about. No big deal. “Are you just worried ‘bout him again? Cause like, Valley’s got it handled. She put a --”

“No Mayola. You don’t….fuck.” There was a pause on the line, followed by Pallia swallowing thickly. “Turn on the TV.”

She looked over at Valeba, curled up tightly on the couch and, hopefully, asleep. “Uh...I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“No Mayola you need to see thisssss. Put the newsssss on. Now.”

The sudden authority in Pallia’s tone threw Mayola through a loop. “But Val--”

“Valeba needs to, too.”

Mayola groaned. She sauntered over to the couch, pushing Valeba’s legs out of the way just enough so she wasn’t sitting on them. Not that it mattered. Valeba pushed herself groggily into a sitting position. “The hell’s going on?” she rasped.

Mayola turned the TV on with a helpless shrug. No point keeping it quiet now. “Just Shorty. I’m placating a fucking…oh.”

As the television screen flickered to life, she saw exactly what Pallia was talking about. Images of cities, some she recognized and some she didn’t, in literal chaos. Lowbloods with obscured faces with molotov cocktails marching through the streets. Midbloods evacuating from a burning officeblock, some perfectly safely through the door, others jumped out of top windows, shattering glass just to end it before it collapsed on them. Lusii rampaging through city streets, bulldozing everything and everyone in their path. Drones cutting down anyone who got close to them. Blues and greens of the upper castes painting the streets as frequently as the browns, yellows and reds of the bottom. No matter which city, the same carnage.

Distantly, she recognized the reporter’s voice speaking over top, but registered no words. Hell, the titles of cities that flashed over and over again looked like symbols on a screen until one of them looked distinctly like a symbol set of the city not far from them. And here they were, sitting ducks in a hivestem ignoring the whole fucking thing. How pathetic.

Mayola gripped her phone with a clammy hand. She dared not look over at Valeba.

“Is...how’s--”

“Sandyhorn’s fine,” Pallia said quietly. “We turned on the newss before going to ssssleep. I just saw one of those cities, ssstumbled upon the name and…”

The looming silence between them only broken by muffled, choked tears from the other end told Mayola everything she needed to know. Who knew how long she’s been freaking out.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Perfectly safe. Just some cancelled plans it’s soundin’ like.”

“Sssssorry.”

“Ain’t your fault. But yeah, let Ace know the two of us are fine and if this somehow hits our shores, we sure as hell ain’t goin’ down without a fight. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Can do.”

“And get some fuckin’ sleep. Please.”

“Mmhm.” Mayola heard something shuffle around on the other side as she added, “But ssseriously, if you see Dontoc can you...can you text me? He hasn’t answered me in hoursss and if it weren’t for all of thissss, I probably wouldn’t be conssssserned but I am he’ssss not like you and Valeba and--”

“Right, yeah. I get it. Val and I got this. You go sleep.”

Pallia hung up the call without another word. Mayola’s gaze flickered back up to the screen. It cut away from the violence back to the reporters, a couple of unfazed bluebloods who spoke coldly about the whole topic, how callous these trolls are for putting undue stress on Alternia so close to the holidays.

“So this is how it feels being a highblood, huh.”

She jerked her head over to Valeba. The brownblood’s gaze was affixed to the screen, unfocused. At some point, she must’ve readjusted herself into a sitting position, knees tucked underneath her chin. “Getting to sit comfy in your ivory tower while the world falls apart around you.”

Mayola grimaced. She wanted to rebut, but what could she say? That it wasn’t true? That Valeba was overreacting? Everything would be okay, because they would be safe, she could trust the man running it was hemoloyal enough, no one would want to touch him? With a sigh, she said, “Yeah. That’s about how it works. Everything goes to shit around you while you’re in the only sunny spot and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. I doubt they’ll touch here though. Her Imperious Sunshine ain’t one to fuck around with galas that sing her praises.”

“We’ve fought them before,” she pointed out. “I get we can’t do it now cause it’ll look bad. I do. Teals talk and all that shit. But we already weren’t going home until after 12th Perigee. This city’s so close it’d be easy, and the both of know riots like this last until the damn city is decimated. That shit takes weeks. And no one else here’s gonna give a shit.”

She wasn’t wrong. Mayola fought drones for target practice. Valeba’s aim with a bow was the result of sweeps upon sweeps of honing it into deadly precision and aim. The two together, as she’s found out more than once, were lethal together. So long as the chaos stayed mostly under control, they might be able to knock the drones off without word getting out off-planet of a seadweller assisting.

“You realize Eeks would tell me no, right?” The words sounded hollow in Mayola’s head. She might’ve said it sweeps ago, but now Mayola wasn’t so sure. She might end up saying that she’s upholding tyrian leadership and showcasing her power as possible Empress by standing up to the drones of the current one. More importantly, Mayola desperately wanted to slice and dice on in true 12th Perigee revelry and mayhem tradition. Combined with becoming a living, breathing incarnation of karma in at least one city toward a bunch of perfect targets for such and it all made it difficult to tell herself no.

“I’m not Icasui,” she said flatly. “They deserve justice.”

“You’ll worry your moirail.”

“Dontoc’s got bigger things to worry about than me right now.” Valeba’s gaze turned to her. Even in the darkness of the room, Mayola felt the angry, determined gaze burn holes into her soul. “You fucking know you want to stick it to those goddamn jackass, no good, hemoloyal fuckers. And what better way to do it than jumping out of that stupid, mile high tower and into the fray that’ll dirty their claws?”

Her breath caught in her throat. She’d never meet another troll who could speak to her like Valeba. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

The screen flipped back to the city. Mayola caught blood castes of all kinds fighting back. Bluebloods and yellowbloods pushing back in tandem. Olives and jades and rusts and teals taking advantage of their strengths for a common goal. All together, as if this were Sandyhorn and not a zone of high Empress control, cooperating. All except one caste.

Mayola couldn’t see a single seadweller among the dissenters.

She placed a hand on Valeba’s knee, grinning silently. Now wasn’t the time for words. She didn’t need them. Valeba understood. There would be hell to pay, and the regular trolls weren’t the ones in debt.

[fatathlon]

Triathlon #3!

After falling behind on posting, I have been attempting to write two posts every time I write a post and to catch up to the present day.  It’s clear that it’s never going to happen, though, so I need to revise my strategy.  I don’t need the extraneous, self-generated pressure of feeling like I need to archive every significant workout I do in written words.  So I’m going to jump straight ahead in time to my third triathlon, which took place on September 1st, and then just start posting in the present tense again.  And if I feel like going back to recount an experience I can, but I’m not going to try to catch them all up.  Just keep moving forward.

So, without further ado, here’s my race report for triathlon #3!

I sort of built my season targeting this as my ‘big race,’ even though it wasn’t all that different from the first two I did in all practical terms. I traveled to Ottawa to do this race (had friends to stay with) so it felt like a more exotic and exciting way to do a race. So it was a goal race for me in terms of being a culminating event of my season.

Pre-race

I haven’t done many triathlons yet, so I wasn’t entirely sure if my judgment was off or not, but my first impression of the transition routes was that they were terrible. They seemed to be really far to go, particularly for a sprint, and through some ungainly terrain. I wasn’t looking forward to running up a sizable hill from the beach, barefoot, on an unswept asphalt bike path. I also wasn’t looking forward to running super far in bike cleats — including up and down some small hills, across a football field and along a dirt footpath into a gully (I bike in socks, so I couldn’t do the shoes-clipped-in-already method; might be something for me to work on in the off season) But maybe I had just been spoiled at my other events and this was normal. I didn’t really have the experience to know. And anyway, there was nothing to be done but make the best of it. The transition area was in the middle of an Olympic-sized running track, which was fenced all around. Athletes could only enter from one end, so I had to walk halfway around to get in. Security was tight on seeing numbers and matching bike tags. God help you if you forgot anything. I appreciated the care taken to ensure people’s bikes were protected but I think the entrance could have been closer to the other side of things. I ended up having to sprint from the transition area to the beach in order to make the race announcements. My fault for not arriving early enough I guess, but I didn’t realize how long it would take to get everywhere.

Swim

The swim was pretty similar to the other two I had done, which is to say I don’t think there was anything too exceptional about it. It was in the Rideau Canal, which technically has a current, but I didn’t notice much. The water was a comfortable temperature, but quite weedy and murky. I was aiming to simply stay relaxed and find my own rhythm, and I was able to do that for the most part. Only got kicked a couple of times, which was an improvement over my other races so far. The guy who did the race announcements high-fived everyone as they got out of the water.

T1

I left the beach and ran for the track. As expected, it turned out to be an effort. I started on the asphalt but then started running on the grass, as my feet were hurting. I was a little nervous about what might be hiding in the grass to poke my bare feet (rocks? snakes? tiny Canadian leprechauns?) but I didn’t end up stepping on anything. I felt more winded by the time I got to my bike than I had when I exited the water. I got my stuff on without trouble and headed out with my bike. First out of the track area, then across a football field, down a forest path, down and up a gully, across a road and finally to the mount line.

Bike

Cycling is my strongest discipline and the one I look forward to the most. I knew my biggest challenge here would be pacing. The course was virtually flat, which was a disadvantage for me because I’m a Clydesdale and I get a lot of benefit from the downhills. With no hills to speak of, it was entirely up to my legs without much of a gravity assist. I paid attention to my heart and breathing, trying to keep things steady and not going overboard, while aiming for my mph average. I thought it went pretty well. I wasn’t breathing very hard for most of the 3 loops, and only really started to feel it at the end of the 3rd. I also caught a bunch of people, some even from the first swim wave that went out 5 minutes before mine, so I felt I was doing ok. I had been nervous about losing count of my laps, but they had people announcing your name and what lap you were on, which was awesome. It was also cool to see all the different racers on the same course, because it was a looped route. The iron distance folks were doing 9 laps to my 3. I nailed my average speed goal. Once I hit the dismount line, things got awful.

T2

Running after the bike is not comfortable, as we all know. For me, this was way worse because I had to traverse the same off-road route back to the track, in cleats, with jelly legs. I tried to run, but I mostly couldn’t and had to walk. My calves started seizing when I tried to run on elevation in my biking shoes, and having had a calf injury earlier in the season, I wasn’t willing to risk hurting myself. So I walked it in.

Run

My watch failed on the run - just wouldn’t work for me at all, so I had no idea of my current pace. That was frustrating. I felt pretty awful, which I have come to expect for the first mile or so. Usually it evens out and I find my stride, and things feel better after that. Not so today. I kept it going but I was riding the struggle bus the whole way. I felt underhydrated, especially in the sunny sections. The last mile was a mental battle. I ended up only about :15 off my goal pace, so it turned out it wasn’t as bad as it felt.

Post-race

I had passed a couple of other Clydesdales (I could tell from body marking) and none had passed me, and I didn’t see anyone my age pass me, so I had suspicions that I did relatively well in the rankings. When the results were posted, I saw that I had won the Clydesdale category! I checked to see where I would be in my age group, had I picked that option, and I would have been second! I was the 17th male, and 20th overall out of 115. They were by far my best results, so it turned out it felt hard for a good reason. I got a ‘gold champion’ lanyard to add to my finisher’s medal and other race swag.

The race was organized pretty professionally and seemed to be run well; my only complaints were that the transitions were so challenging. It seemed like they were expecting more people - there were lots of empty racks and a ton of space on the field. Maybe a low year for them.

What's next?

I’m not doing any more triathlons this season, but I’m excited to continue training and to work toward Olympic distance next year. I don’t really have any idea how to make that leap, but I’m motivated to find out!

[xhostcom]

A Beginners Guide To Aria Markup

Accessibility is a major issue in today’s online world. These days, having a website that many people struggle to navigate is considered unacceptable. ARIA markup is a step in the right direction. It’s an answer to the question how you can make your website more usable for those with disabilities. What is ARIA? A set of code attributes that expand HTML’s capabilities and make it easy to optimize your site for screen readers. It does this by making parts of your website visible to assistive technology, that otherwise, these devices wouldn’t be able to interact with at all. Ready to include ARIA in your website? Or just curious to learn more about it? In this article, we’ll explain what ARIA is, how to make your site accessible, and give you the resources to learn more about this invaluable technology.

Why Make Your Site Accessible?

Some people might wonder: why care about web accessibility? Is it really worth putting in the resources to learn specifications like ARIA? Is creating an accessible website really making much of an impact? Disability Isn’t Uncommon In actuality, yes. Disability isn’t so rare. 18.7% of Americans have a disability of some form. While not all of these will impair their ability to interact with the web, that’s still a staggering number, and it only includes people from the US. 3.3% of Americans also have a vision impairment. This means they could have trouble seeing websites and may rely on tools like screen readers. That’s also a significant percentage of your potential user base and includes the elderly and those with temporary disabilities. People with impairments need the Internet just as much as everyone else. Many use it to shop, socialize, and find information. Sometimes it’s their primary, or even their sole way, of doing so. 54% of disabled people are online, and while this number is smaller than compared to the general population, it’s still a significant portion. Plus, it’s 2019. In this day and age, we should strive to include every user group as well as we can. Giving people with disabilities unrestricted access to browse the web should be a major goal for any web developer. Plus, it even comes with personal benefits. Accessibility Overlaps With Good Web Design and SEO A site that follows accessibility standards is often one that’s using good web design principles, works better on mobile devices, and ranks high in SEO. For instance, one of the WCAG standards includes not auto-playing long clips of audio without a way to stop the sound. This is already a big no-no for web designers. Another standard is providing enough color contrast between elements. Colors that blend together on a website are often an indication of a bad palette. As a consequence, following accessibility guidelines leads to a site that looks better and is more user-friendly. Can anybody say win-win?

Accessibility is also an important part of SEO. Shirking it can lead to ranking penalties from Google and other search engines. But adding alt text to your images, including keyboard controls in interactive elements, and using headings both help disabled visitors and give you an SEO boost.

As you can see, making your site accessible is a good idea as it has an impact on all user groups. If designing a website that offers everyone a good experience is your aim, then you should do everything you can to avoid excluding people with impairments. One thing you can do is implement ARIA into your design, so people with screen readers can better find their way through your site. What are Screen Readers? A screen reader is a program that reads the content of a page or document out loud while allowing you to navigate it using the keyboard. Anyone can download one onto their computer, and there are a variety of programs available free or paid. Some of them also help navigate the desktop and other programs as well as websites. They may enlarge text and images for the visually impaired, and some can output to a refreshable braille display. This guide explains how screen readers work. Without screen readers, visually impaired people would struggle to use a computer and the Internet, or be unable to use them at all. ARIA markup plays a big part in how these tools function. It provides extra information, giving them more options and the ability to interact with parts of the UI that would otherwise be invisible to them. But what exactly is ARIA, and how can you improve your website by including it? Let’s give a quick breakdown on this specification and how it works.

What is ARIA?

ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It is a set of attributes that provide extra context for how a web page is laid out and what’s inside it. In other words, they give more information about parts of the UI, such as popup alerts, menus, or even whole sections of the page. If you have ever looked at a website with the browser developer tools, you might have seen it before. To quote the Mozilla documentation: “The complementary landmark role is used to designate a supporting section that relates to the main content, yet can stand alone when separated.” So, basically, this part of the markup lets screen readers know about what part of the layout they are dealing with. Consequently, ARIA allows you to create accessible interfaces and widgets without even changing how they look or act on the front end. Most people won’t be able to even tell the markup is present. But add a little code, and screen readers will be able to seamlessly interact with your interface. When is ARIA Really Necessary? By default, screen readers can understand most HTML and HTML5 elements. If you have a very simple, static site, you may not need to implement ARIA at all. But some Javascript, dynamic, and interactive elements can’t be seen by screen readers, and this is where the markup comes in. On the other hand, you shouldn’t use ARIA when what you’re defining is already accessible. For instance, the HTML element is recognized by screen readers. It doesn’t need to have a button ARIA role. You should only include roles when you’re not using HTML elements that are supported by assistive devices. In the same vein, technically I don’t need to add the complementary role to an aside element above as they both describe the same thing. However, you find this markup quite often as it is above. Still confused? Let’s talk a little more about how ARIA works.

Understanding ARIA

Things can get very complex with ARIA, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But the basics of it are fairly easy to break down. Once you understand those, learning more advanced concepts will be a snap. ARIA markup is made up of three attributes: roles, states, and properties. ARIA Roles Roles define elements on a page, such as buttons and checkboxes. They help screen readers tell what parts of a page do, and they have four different sub-categories: landmark, document, widget, and abstract roles. Landmark roles — Separate a site into different sections, like main content, navigation, and complementary areas. This can help visitors get their bearings and more easily find what they’re looking for on a page.Document roles — Describe specific sections within a page, such as articles, documents, lists, and rows.Widget roles — Define elements and interfaces. Tabs, textboxes, alerts, and buttons are some of the elements ARIA can describe. When HTML doesn’t define these elements, or you’re using a widget made of many different parts, widget roles can help.Abstract roles — These are utilized by the browser. You don’t need to worry about them.States and Properties States and properties work similarly to each other. Properties once set rarely change, as they only describe relationships with other elements. States are dynamic and can change on their own or with user interaction. An example of a state is aria-busy, which tells the screen reader that the element is updating. Another is aria-pressed, which indicates that a button has been pushed. These are elements which can actively change. On the other hand, properties include attributes like aria-valuemax which sets the maximum number in a range selector, or aria-haspopup which indicates that an element will trigger a popup. These are not likely to update. And that’s the basics of ARIA. Much simpler once it’s broken down, right? But you’d be surprised how much you can do with it. To learn more, try the official WAI-ARIA documentation, or Google’s beginner introduction for developers.

Testing for ARIA Accessibility

Once you’ve implemented ARIA, you might want to make sure that everything is running smoothly. How does your site really look on assistive devices? The most obvious way is to download a free screen reader like NVDA, blindfold yourself, and go to town. This will give you the full experience.

You can also skip the blindfold and just hover the elements you want to check ARIA attributes on, but you’ll miss out on key info like how difficult it is to find those elements. Even this isn’t a perfect representation of what it’s like to use a screen reader as it takes a lot of practice to learn, so it’s best to ask actual users to test drive your website. There are also many inspector tools like Firefox’s Accessibility Inspector that let you see information about selected elements. WAVE points out various errors, including those with ARIA. Finally, this ARIA widget checklist makes a great audit for while you’re designing.

Other Ways to Make Your Site Accessible

ARIA markup is just the beginning when it comes to web accessibility. There are many other standards you should follow to make your site usable by people with vision, hearing, mobility, and other impairments. Here are a few examples of just a handful of guidelines you should follow. Website content is responsive and works while zoomed in.The site and its elements can be used with only a keyboard.Text is properly contrasted against the background.All non-text content has text alternatives, including audio and video captions/transcripts.Ensure that most images have descriptive alt text, and decorative images have empty alt text.No information is conveyed solely through sight, sound, or color.Avoid auto-playing audio without providing a mute button.Automatically moving elements can be paused or stopped.That’s only a handful of what you can do to make your site truly accessible. If this feels like too much, try the simple accessibility checklist. Use it as a basis for your design before moving onto the more detailed WCAG guidelines.

Making Your Site Usable for Everyone

Avoiding accessibility can have a negative impact on your user base and even your reputation. People with disabilities make up a large percentage of web users, and it’s important to ensure that the majority of the Internet isn’t closed off to them. By implementing accessibility standards including ARIA markup, you’re both giving screen reader users the ability to see more of the web, and allowing your website to grow as large as possible. Once you know how to include specifications like ARIA, accessibility will seem a lot less confusing. Making your site easier to use for everyone means more people willing to stick around, so there’s no reason not to use ARIA if your site needs it. Many themes also offer it out of the box by now. These standards don’t just help people with disabilities; they help everyone. Accessibility guidelines often overlap with good web design practices and are quick to implement once you know them. So remember to include ARIA when you’re developing a website. It’s better for you and for all your users. Do you ever have trouble navigating websites? What could web designers and developers do to improve the situation? Let us know your experiences with online accessibility (or lack thereof) in the comments! Read the full article