A completely underestimated part of our constitution came into being 150 years ago today, 18th July 2022. This was the Secret Ballot Act. Before 1872, anyone emancipated by the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 would still have had no real vote. Anyone who held their land from someone else…

When you think about alternative text, it is sometimes better not to think about text at all. Think, instead, about listening. Imagine someone (or remember someone!) who blethers on, and on, and on. What did you listen to; what did you hear? Think, also, about speaking. …

They tell you that there is a straightforward standard for colour contrasts, but for thing, it’s about the contrasts — not the colours. Forget red and green. Not everyone sees red; not everyone can tell red from green. Think: blue. Blue does not ‘have a good contrast’. Navy blue against…

Magnetic paint can be encoded. A monitor screen can be made into a bendy sheet, like a roll of paper. The code that tells a screenreader to speak one word aloud is the same code that tells a computer what word to represent as a series of lights on a…

You know the first ten seconds of the interview? How the handshake, meeting the eye, standing appropriately, being dressed for the part — all make a first impression that probably, you cannot undo? When sighted people read a screen or a page, they have already had their first impression. They…

There are Christians in America who cluster the flag, the Bible, and the handgun, together. I can’t imagine what ‘Christian nationalism’ could be, given that the Church is a ‘pilgrim Church’; given that every one of us is peregrinus in terra aliena, with our patria in heaven. But while all…

Using the shortcut which is the software app, I can ‘program’ documents that only forty years ago you would have to be an actual programmer to construct. …

When I was young, available computers were the BBC Acorn and the Sinclair Spectrum. Coding was ‘programming’. To use the computer, you had to know how to ‘program’ it (we used the American spelling). Now computers have a visual interface — the imaginary page, or window, of the screen. …

Accessibility is not readability. Readability is part of accessibility, but it is not accessibility’s whole story; therefore, Plain English is not the whole story. Plain English is a specialism in itself, and so is Easy Read — something else again. Just as the engine of a car has a structure…