Andrew Hick

Accessibility and test person, Bath, UK. He/him.


I help make technology work for everyone. I also make things out of pixels, code, pens and bits of string.

This site includes my professional portfolio, hobbies and the bits in between. All opinions are my own.


Work

I'm a certified senior accessibility specialist, working at the UK Government Digital Service, to monitor public sector websites and apps for accessibility.


Creative

Mainly visual hobbies.


Some recent things


Colour switcher and reduced motion

A couple of overdue tweaks to improve the accessibility of the site.


WCAG 2.2 map by theme

Web content accessibility guidelines map resembling an underground train map. Follow the link for more detail.

Select the image or see the WCAG map page for more detail. This diagram groups all the success criteria from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 levels A and AA, by practical theme for testing.

Other versions:


San Gimignano - Smoky towers

Watercolour painting of towers on a hill, with smoke in the air, distant mountains and two small figures in the foreground


San Gimignano - Piazza del Duomo

Watercolour painting of medieval square Italian towers with two figures looking up towards birds flying into the windows


Milsom St, Bath

A first attempt at a watercolour with lines on top.

Watercolour of a grand Georgian terrace overlaid with pen and ink detail, with a dramatic cloud overhead


San Gimignano

A fairytale Tuscan city.

Pen and ink drawing of a medieval town on a hill with towers, framed by an olive tree and gardens


Blog post: How mobile apps undergo accessibility monitoring

An overview of the challenges we've faced applying Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to mobile apps, along with a case study.

Fluffy cat looking at accessibility settings on a phone for blog post on mobile app testing


Video: What WCAG 2.2 means for UK public sector websites and apps

A presentation with Chris Heathcote covering the latest draft Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (version 2.2), and what public sector organisations need to do about them.

A slide demonstrating the accessibility of carousel controls


Mucha window

Cross stitch of Alphonse Mucha's stained glass window in St Vitus Cathedral, Prague. I was blown away by the colours radiating from the centre and decided to plan my biggest cross stitch yet as a pandemic project. Two years and five months later (life also happened) it's finally finished.

A stitched gothic window with various Jesus-y and saintly things happening across 42 panels (there are quite a few haloes and people looking authoritative). Radiating from the centre, the colours are mainly yellow and orange, whereas the outside is more dark blue.


Chrysanthemum colour chart

A chart showing all 4,096 colours with 3-digit codes, from #000 (black) to #fff (white). Click/tap for a larger version.

Colour chart featuring 216 chrysanthemum flowers arranged into a hexagonal shape by colour

Go to the colour page for a fuller description.


Pandora on PICO-8

Get through 16 levels in as few moves as possible while looking for your long lost socky. Defeat your nemesis.

Play pixelly cat game


Everything

Two lines on a transport map, labelled where they intersect with a Web Content Accessibility Guidelines reference Grey hillside with distant mountains and dramatic cloud Corner of a rustic Tuscan building with cypress trees in the background Painted Georgian building detail against a blue sky Distant watercolour trees Medieval tower Cat face from blog about mobile app accessibility monitoring A stylised sun with 24 rays in the style of a lithograph, with a child's slightly smiling face A large capital letter A drawn in a classical style, with gentle curves and thin slab serifs Carousel controls to illustrate WCAG 2.2 Cup of tea with blackbirds outside the window Cross stitch Jesus Tab symbol Green chrysanthemum shaped colour swatch 1.1.1 Ammonite Flamingo head Squirrel on a chutney jar Cross stitch geological map A letter having its contrast checked Sparrow on seaside rock Train lines in three colours bird in industrial vent Concentric letters spelling CDDO pixellated black cat Drawn figures in a park cypress logo The word 'carrier' from a gov.uk page Art deco clock with kaleidoscope effect Logo of a girl in the mountains Pen and ink drawing of Cambridge rooftops Pen and ink drawing of St Ives from above The words 'test standards' from GitHub Drawing of Andrew and Victoria Cross stitch golden spiral Black cat face Gold nodule The word Outré Old button saying Press A pixellated heart from the game Xzap Train shelf and reflected face The word 'waste' from a gov.uk page Scribbly cat Roman Baths Figures on Weymouth beach prototype kit mind map with bonus Paddington Bear Wedding rings Heptonstall church drawing automation tester mind map Figures in Moorlands Park, Bath designer induction mind map Angel Square drawing, Bury St Edmunds writing for gov.uk mindmap Sprites from the game Xzap Cross hatched letter B World cup 2018 wallchart Bath map Cross stitch Keepsake Imagetek logo Bristol map Manchester map manage your water abstraction interaction design mind map square circuit puzzle light cubes puzzle Testing GOV.UK Cloudy cube puzzle Hexagonal hexagon puzzle Message from above puzzle Escher cross stitch Penguin puzzle Cheese maze The word Cameras in several fonts Heptonstall church drawing Hexagonal web safe colour palette Lazarus boys logo Leon concert hall drawing Word icons Louis Theroux drawing sign up for flood warnings Hexagonal Escher waterfall Escher's pixel art relativity