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Bri11iant

MIT license Northwestern HCI NSF Grant 1901456

Bri11iant logo - a Lightbulb with an 11 inside

Bri11iant is currently in Alpha! Feel free to download the extension and leave us feedback, but know that the application will receive many updates before the Open Beta.

Are you an educator interested in using Bri11iant? Contact us at cooperfbarth@gmail.com.

Made with 💜 in Evanston, IL at the Northwestern Inclusive Technology Lab and Delta Lab

Authors: Cooper F. Barth, Thomas B. McHugh

Advisors: Anne Marie Piper (UCI), Eleanor O'Rourke (NU)

Bri11iant is a VSCode language extension for supporting web developers improve the accessibility of their websites. Bri11iant fits right into your text editor, suggesting improvements to your HTML, CSS, and Javascript code in order to improve the accessibility of your websites.

We love the web. The goal of Bri11iant is to help make the internet a more inclusive place by providing developers with in-editor support for vital accessibility standards and inclusive design principles. It's often hard to tell what is and isn't an accessibility problem just from looking at your code, and it's even harder sometimes to understand why these issues may be harmful. Moreover, there are many ways to make the design of a website more inclusive past simply following WCAG standards. That's where Bri11iant comes in. As you're writing HTML (more languages coming soon!), Bri11iant can diagnose and report parts of your website that could be modified in order to provide your users a more inclusive experience.

Bri11iant is smart. Instead of just parsing the HTML file you're working on, Bri11iant can use the links to your CSS and Javascript files to construct a virtual render tree of your website and provide a more complex analysis without you ever needing to launch your browser. This lets Bri11iant give suggestions about inclusive design principles like color contrast, dynamic content handling, and multi-modal content presentation. We want this website to be able to act as a comprehensive resource for learning about accessibility and inclusive design. Alongside the Bri11iant extension, we provide extensive documentation, articles, and blog posts about accessibility, inclusive design, and the A11y community.

Compatibility

Text Editors

Languages

Run

Visual Studio Code

  1. Download the Bri11iant extension.
  2. Install and enable the application.

Local (VSCode)

First, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/InclusiveTechNU/Bri11iant.git
cd Bri11iant

Then, run these commands to install dependencies and compile the project:

npm install
npm start

Open Visual Studio Code. Press ⌘ + Shift + B to build the project. Then, press F5 to run the project in debug mode. A new VSCode window should pop up with the language client and server running.

This project is built and maintained by the Northwestern University Inclusive Technology Lab and is funded by NSF Grant 1901456.