I place the start of my career in accessibility to some time in 2008. Sure, I had done accessibility stuff before then, but I always saw me as a front-end developer with an interest in accessibility, not an outright person whose main focus was accessibility. I chose this …

After the yearly theme of 2022 spilled over into 2023, it’s time for a new theme for 2024: “The Year of Focus on Focus”. (See the previous post for some context on yearly themes.) The Year of Intent in 2022 worked out very well. I felt better and more intentional. Unfortunately, …

In a stunning press release, Level Access has revealed that it plans to buy accessibility overlay company UserWay for about $99 Million. For those who are unaware, accessibility overlays are JavaScripts that claim to fix accessibility issues automagically. They claim to use “AI” …

I’m not a good “retro” person. I always want to move on to the next thing. But reflecting over the past achievements is a good habit, so let’s do it. This year was very different from last year. I did not bike a single kilometer, which feels super bad, and if I have one personal …

The name “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines” (WCAG) has always been a source of misunderstanding and contention. “Guidelines” implies that this document only guides you, gives you hints on how to make web content accessible. But that is only half of WCAG. The other half are …

My friend Nicolas Steenhout has published an article about the impossibility of specificity in accessibility recommendations. It is excellent, and I strongly recommend reading it before continuing here. The reason we often cannot be super specific has its roots in three areas: …

You might not have noticed it, mainly because it was so quick, but a new HTML functionality is due to arrive in Chromium and WebKit browsers: Exclusive Accordions.[^ Yes, from starting the explainer, which has no serious exploration of the accessibility impact, to almost …

This was my submission for axe-con 2024, which unfortunately did not make it to the conference. Please tell me if the topic would be interesting for you, and you would like to hear more about the topic! Title: Enough with the baby steps! Let’s make accessibility leaps. Outline: …

While it is often sufficient to test the mobile view of websites and applications on the desktop, with desktop browsers, it’s sometimes not enough: Some websites use device sniffing to hash out which device is used and deliver different code to users. In other instances, the web …

You can switch VoiceOver (and Voice Control) on in the iOS settings on iPhone and iPad. But this is very cumbersome if you are in the process of testing an app or website. There are quicker ways: Using Siri Siri switches VoiceOver on where you are at the moment, if you invoke it …

This is a repost of a Twitter thread from August 2022. Slightly edited in format and for clarity. Accessibility must work within the constraints of an ableist world to improve things. I hope it can help to make the world a tiny bit less unjust every day. I have seen …

Time and time again, I come across accessibility solutions in which teams have put a massive amount of work. And often I have to ask them to undo that work. There are many reasons for that request, but it typically comes down to a false understanding of how assistive …

Every few months, the discussion comes up that you cannot make accessibility work if you are not fighting for disability rights or practicing inclusive design. While there is a kernel of truth in that – it will certainly be easier to make consistently good choices regarding the …

Earlier this week, W3C/WAI announced that Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 is now at the last hurdle before becoming a standard. This is huge news because its precursor WCAG 2.1 is the basis of a lot of accessibility policy and laws. For example, the European …

When writing about HTML, especially in the context of accessibility audits, you always need to be very clear in what you mean. Otherwise, the guidance is challenging to read for your audience. I recommend to always include brackets with the element names. You can differentiate …

About two weeks ago, the WCAG WG released a new version of the Candidate Recommendation for WCAG 2.2. After it had been in the Editor’s Draft for quite some while, it changed the requirements for the Focus Appearance Success Criterion (SC). The SC was deemed to not be AA-worthy. …

The latest WebAIM Million has come out. For those who are unaware, it is an automated accessibility evaluation of the top 1 Million home pages. While it is an automated test which only finds a subset of accessibility barriers, its results can at least show us trends: Average …

Over the past few years, accessibility companies have started to develop tools that claim to find accessibility problems automatically. Often the idea is that “automated testing is not quite there yet, but in a few years there will be a revolution”. I don't believe that. Human …

It’s January 2023 and there is a new WCAG 2.2 Candidate Recommendation Draft (which apparently is a different type of document from the September Candidate Recommendation Snapshot). Here is a diff between these two versions for your convenience. Table of Contents About the …

Year in review blog posts are very en vogue this year. Probably because people now have more time on their hand now that they are not constantly doomscrolling on Twitter. Good stuff We have settled in to the new apartment, and it is still great and everything we could wish for. …