I stream about the web.
Some Antics is a weekly show about accessibility and core web technologies. Each week, I invite an expert on who can teach me something about building great online user experiences in a hands-on way.
I'm available for your stream, podcast, or meetup.
All appearances-
axe-con 2023 Hijacking Screenreaders with CSS
Make screenreaders insert extra content, change pronunciations, or forget an element’s semantics altogether – with just a few lines of everyday CSS! Presented at axe-con 2023.
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PodRocket Accessibility with Ben Myers
I joined Kate Trahan and Brendan Downing on the PodRocket podcast to discuss how web developers can get started with web accessibility!
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Learn With Jason Build a Color Contrast Checker with Eleventy Serverless
I joined Learn With Jason to show off how to get started with Eleventy Serverless by building a color contrast checker with little to no client-side JavaScript.
Blog
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The Web Needs a Native .visually-hidden
For years, developers have passed around a set of styles like a magic incantation. It's time we made it a web standard.
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Create Shareable Automatic Captions for Live Online Events with Web Captioner
Stuck using a platform for live online events that doesn't support captions? Here's how to generate captions you can share in a few quick steps.
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A First Look at the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act Bill
Congress just introduced a new bill to ensure digital accessibility for websites and applications. I took a look.
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Style with Stateful, Semantic Selectors
See how building with accessible semantics from the get-go can give you expressive, meaningful style hooks for free.
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How I Doubled My Lighthouse Performance Score in One Night
I spent some time seeing if I could get my Lighthouse performance score up. Here's how I fared.
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How to Fix Your Low-Contrast Text
Solve 30% of the web's accessibility defects with just the help of a calculator!
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Build a Twitch Chatbot for Sharing Your Content Using Algolia Search
Finding and sharing links to your content in your Twitch chat is now just a command away!
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12 Days of Web Form Autocomplete
Learn how to help users fill out forms more efficiently and accurately with autocomplete and virtual keyboard options.
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Ben's Humane Guide to Technical Blogging
Hi. I'm a sporadic technical blogger. Here's a few things I've learned about blogging for fun.
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On the <dl>
The semantics you didn't know you needed.
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Takeaways From "Adapting Comics for Blind and Low Vision Readers: A Roundtable Discussion"
"Are we adapting the form of comics or the content of comics?"
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Takeaways From Axe-Con 2021
What I learned from Axe-Con about automated accessibility testing, design systems, data visualization, organizational influence, and more.
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I Finally Understand Eleventy's Data Cascade.
Where does Eleventy get all of its data? Which data overrules other data? I've documented my whole mental model of Eleventy's data cascade.
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RSS Readers: Yet Another Case for Semantic Markup
I found a pleasant surprise in my RSS reader, and it reminded me why I write semantic markup.
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Implement a Skip Link for Navigation-Heavy Sites
Add a link to the beginning of your page to help keyboard navigators skip over repeated links.
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aria-label, aria-labelledby, and aria-describedby: What's the Difference?
Diving deep into three attributes that bring clarity to elements in assistive technologies.
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Out With The Old, In With The New
How and why I rebuilt my blog from the ground up with Eleventy.
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Maintaining Focus Outlines for Windows High Contrast Mode
I'm using outline: 3px solid transparent; from now on.
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Lexical and Dynamic Scope
A peek inside the matryoshka dolls that power your programming. Written mainly for JavaScript developers.
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CSS Can Influence Screenreaders
How CSS bleeds into content and influences screenreader announcements.
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New Year, New Terminal: Alias Your Directories the Unix Way
The trick I use all day to speed up development and make my Unix terminal delightful.
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New Year, New Terminal: Alias Your Directories the Windows Way
The trick I use all day to speed up development and make Command Prompt delightful.
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What Is ARIA?
A beginner's guide to ARIA: what it is, what it does, why you should use it... and when you shouldn't.
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The Accessibility Tree
Understanding the flow of page contents from browser to screenreader caused me to radically rethink accessible markup.
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How (Not) to Build a Button
When you reinvent the wheel, you might miss a few spokes.
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How Domino's Could Topple the Accessible Web – Part 1: Public Accommodations
The popular pizza chain has a big part to play in the unseen war over the web.