Web accessibility consultant specialising in accessible JavaScript, neurodivergent (ADHD), writer, musician, rainbow socialist 🦄🏳️🌈 fancies himself a philosopher when the moment speaks 🌼
Public Key
npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 Profile Code
nprofile1qqs2zp40mlea2p8avd87lzqjlv865986cnaftf3ym95lgzev56sdyzgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds7tqx4y
Show more details
Published at
2026-01-14T09:58:03Z Event JSON
{
"id": "ec30928ba40b95f1135998233d919b9c2f6dfb77d51089858b0ae8b0a34b4cdd" ,
"pubkey": "a106afdff3d504fd634fef8812fb0faa14fac4fa95a624d969f40b2ca6a0d209" ,
"created_at": 1768384683 ,
"kind": 0 ,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.world/users/siblingpastry",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mastodon.world/users/siblingpastry",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "{\"name\":\"James Edwards\",\"about\":\"Web accessibility consultant specialising in accessible JavaScript, neurodivergent (ADHD), writer, musician, rainbow socialist 🦄🏳️🌈 fancies himself a philosopher when the moment speaks 🌼\",\"website\":\"https://mastodon.world/@siblingpastry\",\"picture\":\"https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/accounts/avatars/109/801/260/734/494/828/original/7b6c8e73fb361773.jpg\",\"banner\":\"https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/accounts/headers/109/801/260/734/494/828/original/667a33866ca1aef8.png\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \"}" ,
"sig": "b712af4bd59e52de72d73a28096613a8a2d7967a0bfc712c626b1b7a258a8b6244d0d72dd20b744862df2c50900895b265c9f4e0f489249c1ad799d04e472b4f"
}
Last Notes npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I’ve encountered that too … do they really not see what they’re really saying, or just not willing to say it❓🤷♂️ npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I confess I’ve yet to find any needed use-case for it 🤷♂️ npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards “I don’t wanna do touristy stuff, I wanna do something real.” npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Milk has to be cold, stop lights have to be red, links have to work. I’m on board 👍 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards If he gets a Nobel prize, there won’t be any more, the entire concept will collapse. Maybe that’s the point, for him. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Not to mention patronising, as if readers who need large text or a screen reader have no idea how to do that 🤦♂️ npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I guess I’m a bit jaded lol, I’ve seen too much bad accessibility caused by blase lack of effort or care, so assumed the other way npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards If the phone was an additional helpline for a robustly accessible site, staffed by people with the knowledge and motivation to help, then yeah I’m all for that as a positive thing. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Yeah the second one, it’s glib and dismissive and frankly patronising as fuck, in my view. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Anger and despair come to mind npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Sparkle the Unicorn Princess ftw 🦄 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Ace 👍 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards or you could just not truncate the … npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Ah I see — full citizenship, not just residency? Presumably the vetting process also eliminates anyone who isn’t white (or orange) npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Isn’t that essentially a co-opt anyway — $1m investment guarantees a green card — that’s been around for decades hasn’t it? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Do you remember the days when new jeans only came in vivid dark blue, which was super uncool so you had to manually distress them (wash them with rocks, drag them behind your bike), and they still lasted ~10 years after that? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Finally deleted the Facebook app from my phone. It was like a scab I couldn’t stop picking at. But removing it meant I had to redesign the collage of icons on my home screen, which is why I left it there so long. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Jodhpurs, yeah that'd work. Or motorbike trousers, go full-on leather npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Leather patches? Like basically the part that’s missing from chaps 😁 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Ha that’s cunning 👍 I used to have some jeans made of what seemed to be a denim-Lycra blend, so they were stretchy, which was kinda cool. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Yeah 5 is usual, so it would be the pairs apart from the back one. Another tie that’s worked is the two either side of (but not including) the back one. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I can’t wear belts or tight trousers because the pressure hurts my bladder, so a trick I figured out is two short strips of knicker elastic (or similar 😇) tied between pairs of belt loops at the side. So they sit on my hips but can still be slack at the front. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Or the DoJ wins, then the Supreme Court strikes it down. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards If you factor in the time cost of writing, I’ve made a huge loss on every book I’ve written or co-written. There is practically zero money in tech publishing, the price reflects production costs at low volume. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Jesus, I had no idea what this song meant before! It was a family joke when I was a kid that the song's about "Elephants' ears". npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards What are “magic numbers”? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I couldn’t stick with it past the first couple of sections, the survey is way way too long. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards But is it truly black, or is it just very very very dark blue? Father Ted might know, but then he'd have an EU one anyway. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I wished I'd learned this earlier in my career -- that writing to support a point of view is allowed to change its mind. It's fine to mostly finish a draft only to realize I was wrong all along, and then write to acknowledge that. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I don't know about mapping, but if that's possible then you would probably only map Control+Option since that's the "VO key". You'd need to look in the VoiceOver Utility to see what's possible. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards A useful trick/keystroke to remember is Control+Option+Shift+ArrowDown which moves between content views (such as between the browser chrome and the viewport region). npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Totally agree. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Is that a reason for not testing though? VO/Chrome is a statistically relevant proportion of screen reader users (about 2% to Safari's 7% according to WebAIM). npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Using `<text>` inside `<svg>` is accessible if the SVG doesn't have a `role`. However if it has `role="img"` (plus accessible name) then most screen readers ignore the `<text>` and only announce the name. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Fantastic article from @npub1247…zzvh examining CSS Carousels implemented with the new features in CSS Overflow 5, and the depressingly-numerous (yet entirely unsurprising) accessibility issues they present. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I read Margaret Atwood’s Mad Adam trilogy in the wrong order (2,3,1) although I didn’t know that until I got to 1. But I still that’s the best order to read them. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards That one needs the long nasal “n” npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards oh btw I really enjoyed your whimsical presentation, been meaning to say. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Yay the Galleria! I did a tap dance at the opening ceremony 😎 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Hey wow, I grew up in Welwyn Garden City. My parents are both northerners though, I have some of their idioms and pronunciation. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Please tell me you don’t say “onvelope” … that’s yuppie pronunciation to my ears 😆 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I have Kr’sont though, I think that’s an American pronunciation. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Kinda only just pronounce the T, like a glottal stop. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Kwa-sont 🥐 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Pushing at the edges is awesome, it deserves to be cool. I just wish it would stop trashing accessibility. That “is accessible” is a fundamental part of the definition of “ground breaking and cool”. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Hopefully Chrome's implementation should give the others a push now. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards > i also worry about the progressive enhancement story for this. until this is implemented in all browsers, it probably should not be used. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards > maybe the real problem here is that CSS can drastically change the visual order of elements. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards The whole purpose of these properties is to solve accessibility problems. Yeah they could be misused, but anything could be. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards It makes no sense though, even in purely economic terms, socialism is inherently cheaper and more efficient. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Fear? Ignorance? Political self-interest? All of the above? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I'm just remembering something else too. I would have been 16 or 17, and a woman approached me in the street asking if I'd buy a flower from her. I think she was a Romany traveller. Conversation went basically like this: npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I never gave much thought to my dad's conservative views until around the same age, when I came home wearing a communist party badge (they were trendy, and red and gold which looks cool, I didn't get the implications). He fair ranted about that one lol. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I wonder how that tracks with response bias. When I worked at MORI we did studies that showed Tory voters tend to downplay their conservative values in opinion polls, producing poll results that underestimate Conservative support. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards That didn't work. But I did figure a solution, which takes advantage of how the virtual pointer behaves in JAWS. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I’ll give that a try, thanks npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Does anyone know how to block key repeats when ENTER is used to fire `click` events on a `<button>`? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Them: "Just be yourself" npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards When I saw that I kinda imagined her as the voice of reason, like her face is saying “what kinda bullshit are you talking about now?” npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards This could be a case of trying to find logic in decisions that weren't made on any rational basis. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Could that be an intentional loophole -- some attempt to undermine China's international shipping industry, or to cause conflict between China and Singapore? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8fYf53SMg npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Kinda sounds to me like you’re describing ADHD traits @npub150c…pfmx npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards This is brilliant 🤩 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Sounds comparable to the impact of UKIP leading to Brexit. Divisions that nobody much cared about now rip through us like cracks in a window, and badges that were little more than ideological hand-waving now unify into proud symbols of intolerance. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards will there be a video of your talk itself? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Counting in 12 goes back thousands of years, you could write a “historical use of 12” article every day for the rest of your life. 🙂 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards The conflation with forced-colors makes it essentially useless. See: https://kilianvalkhof.com/2023/css-html/i-no-longer-understand-prefers-contrast/ @npub1agr…9xth @npub1uhk…t6j8 @npub197g…q2n4 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards If you implement a theme switcher, and it's not the default, npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Respecting preferences is important for accessibility if those preferences are also access needs. If it’s simply a case of, one mode looks nicer than the other, then respecting that has nothing to do with accessibility (which doesn’t make it unimportant, just, not an accessibility concern). npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Oh I see, yeah I’ve read those links, and I simpy didn’t agree that dark mode constitutes an accessibility feature — because it wasn’t designed as one, and the fact that people are relying on it for access needs is a problem, when its specced design is not up to this job. I guess we’ll see what shakes out, but this growing conflation between “prefers” and “needs” is a concerning source of ambiguity. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards What’s your basis for that answer? I don’t claim to know for sure, but I’ve read the legislation and articles discussing this, and it just seems to come down to user customisation requirements. Dark mode is not a form of user customisation, so how could it be required? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Having now read this reply -- the existence of that [data-focus-visible] implies a hack to fix technical debt -- i.e., they know it's not quite right, but they can't change it without breaking backward compatibility, so they give you this hack to fix it yourself. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Yeah absolutely, our world would be very much poorer without art and beauty and the joy it can bring. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Well art is inherently self-indulgent, that's how art is born -- "all art is crime" as I think a saying has it, that art by its very nature defies the rules in order to say something new. And this does not chime well with user-focused design. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Or if the building itself is the art, but the same thing applies, just comes down to whether the artist cares about their audience, and they may not. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Markup is mechanical, and art that deconstructs its mechanics exists only for its own gratification. That’s as artistically valid as anything, art has no functional purpose. But web sites do. It’s like building an art gallery with the street entrance on the second floor and no stairs — that’s fine if you only care about fit competent climbers being able to visit. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Quick look at /03 and it's bad -- links differentiated by color alone, no focus indication other than color change (from black to red, when red is already used for other visual highlighting), misuse of headings and aria-label, and that's quite apart from how hard it is to read sideways text. I stopped looking after that. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards David Jason was the captain in the radio series, where the story line got more development compared to the TV version. As you say, every version of the story is different. In the books and radio show, much of Zaphod’s story arc isn’t even in the same universe. 😌 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards As my brother once said, "Boomers will be remembered as the generation who had the easiest lives in all human history, then screwed it up for everyone else at the end, out of spite." @npub1hfw…pfwr @npub1m3t…jh39 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards It is curious, and yet maybe inevitable, this perception that the world is more dangerous now, when we actually live in the safest of times for the best part of two millenia. As you say, we're simply far more aware of it now. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards It's a tricky one isn't it, when Britain really is broken and the world is going to shit. But that's nothing new, all that seems to vary is the stories and conspiracies told by those who like it this way. It's a truism to say that it's getting increasingly difficult to tell the difference, as the stories become so bizarre in times that there's no way to rationalise around them. Which I suppose is the point (cue Adam Curtis 🙃). @npub1hfw…pfwr @npub1m3t…jh39 npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards We could probably adapt a common saying here: "To someone without a hammer ... what's a nail?" npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards The best ones are: npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Yeah it would be making stuff up, but I mean (literally and figuratively speaking) -- all stuff is made up. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Can you imagine what unreal surfaces would feel like? For example, if it’s shiny or rough or looks plasticky, you could mentally conceive of what it might feel like, and then describe that. npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Do you have polling on what proportion of Mac-based devs know about keyboard navigation? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards I've never seen four-digit hex codes before (e.g., `#0000` and `#fff1` in that example). Are those typos, or what is that about? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Is it strictly necessary for form fields and labels to have `for/id` association, or is it enough to wrap the `<label>` around the `<input>` ...? npub15yr2lhln65z06c60a7yp97c04g204386jknzfktf7s9jef4q6gysd7pa64 James Edwards Bear in mind that only 10% of blind people can actually read Braille, so it's not a panacea. More widely useful would be standardizing the placement of QR codes that can be scanned for product info.
