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Caspar Fairhall
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One thing the article omits is the fantastic accessibility in Firefox Developer Edition.

Perhaps these tools aren't well known — they're in the web inspector. It’s a great way to test your site.

Quentin

@caspar @jcsteh Is there a tutorial or training on using these tools? I don't need to very often, and mostly only end up in it after accidentally hitting F12, but visually I find it a massive wall of text with no idea what I'm looking at. I would like to have a better understanding of it though (As I say, I don't need to look at web code very often. I learnt to write websites in HTML with a text editor, and only more recently started finding my way around WordPress - but it would be useful for work now and then).

Jamie Teh
Quiet public

@Quentin When you open the Developer Tools for the first time, you're probably seeing the JS console. There are different panels you can access, including the Accessibility panel. Here's some documentation for the Accesibility panel. Happy to answer questions if you have any. firefox-source-docs.mozilla.or [firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org] @caspar

firefox-source-docs.mozilla.orgAccessibility Inspector — Firefox Source Docs documentation
Quentin
Quiet public

@jcsteh @caspar Thanks Jamie! It probably doesn't help that often when I've looked at it, I don't have a specific goal - or I don't know how to use it so have the WRONG type of goal - will check out the docs though, thank you!

Marco Zehe
Quiet public

@Quentin @jcsteh @caspar My point of entry is usually from a specific point on a website, where something isn’t accessible, via the context menu, where I can explore the accessibility properties of the element I right-clicked on. From there, it is a snap to also go to the HTML tree of said element, and vice versa. I wrote a blog post about this inspector when it initially came out, but some of its information might be out of date by now. marcozehe.de/introducing-the-a

Later, I also showcased how to audit for accessibility using the Firefox developer tools: marcozehe.de/auditing-for-acce

But again, these are a few years old, so are probably no longer up to date with the latest UI.

Marco's Accessibility BlogIntroducing the Accessibility Inspector in the Firefox Developer Tools - Marco's Accessibility Blog
Marco Zehe
Quiet public

@Quentin @jcsteh @caspar Moreover, I no longer actively maintain that blog, so it is unlikely I’m going to update these posts anytime soon.

Jamie Teh
Quiet public

@Quentin @caspar @Marco sadly, as much as I wish it were otherwise, the accessibility panel hasn’t received much further development since those articles were written.

Caspar Fairhall
Quiet public

@jcsteh @Quentin @Marco I wonder if one reason is that the tools have been so poorly promoted. Loads of developers and designers seem never to have heard of them. If the tools had a higher profile, there'd be more of an outcry over their neglect.

Caspar Fairhall
Quiet public

@jcsteh @Quentin @Marco The other factor, of course, is that @mozilla is under such atrocious leadership at present. They really have lost their way.

Jamie Teh
Quiet public

@caspar I'd also flag that Mozilla is competing against the likes of Apple, Google and Microsoft. Given the sheer, unchecked size of those three companies and their ability to leverage their platforms to push their products, that is an incredibly difficult battle.
@Quentin @Marco

Caspar Fairhall
Quiet public

@jcsteh @Quentin @Marco True, but I’m not sure that’s a reason for behaving in such an unhinged and desperate way.

Caspar Fairhall
Quiet public

@Marco @Quentin @jcsteh Good article Marco — thanks! On a quick read through I can't see anything that's obviously out of date. I like your point about the inspector not being an evaluation tool as such, though it’s clearly a great place to start.

Quentin
Quiet public

@caspar @Marco @jcsteh @jcsteh Thanks so much everyone! These are great articles. I've made a note of them to sit down and go through in more detail!