February 20, 2023 • Issue #332

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Featured: Automation is not the enemy

“But the statement “automated testing won’t solve web accessibility” is, frankly, absurd. On one hand, it is almost too obvious to bother saying. But on the other hand, it is absurd because it implies that automated testing is bad and should not be used. I would argue that the opposite is true: it is already good and we’d better hope that automated testing gets better and its use more prolific.”

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Sponsored: Axe-con Speaker Spotlight - Anna E. Cook

Meet Anna E. Cook (YouTube video), Senior Inclusive Designer at Microsoft, before she opens the Design Track at axe-con 2023!

Anna will be talking about “Microsoft Inclusive Design: The Cognitive Model” - the newest addition to the Microsoft toolkit, a set of guidelines to recognize cognitive differences, and the kinds of exclusion that emerge from failing to recognize them.

All sessions are recorded and registration is free.

News, resources, tools and tutorials

• Bite-sized accessibility (resource - bite-sized-a11y.com)
• Accessible Mobile Apps Weekly (resource - accessible-mobile-apps-weekly.ghost.io)
• The troublesome life and lamentable death of Success Criterion 4.1.1 (blog post - medium.com/@christophe.strobbe)
• A guide to troublesome UI components (blog post – a11yproject.com)
• Should inclusive design be a UX concern? (blog post – uxdesign.cc)
• Using ChatGPT to make ChatGPT’s experience more accessible (video – intopia.digital)
• Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong? (blog post - technologyreview.com)
• Buttons, links, and focus (blog post - tempertemper.net)
• Having an AI dialog (blog post – scottohara.me)

New to A11y

Eli Mellen relays an approach for accessibility and the product person to make it happen. I like how Eli emphasizes focusing on people and processes. In my experience, that’s how the majority of accessibility work happens.