November 11, 2024 • Issue #422

View this issue online or browse the full issue archive.

Featured: Designing against the deaf tax

"'Your baby has failed' isn’t a phrase any parent wants to hear. Yet for parents born with deaf children, babies are labeled failures before even leaving the hospital if they don’t pass mandated hearing tests. The weight and impact of that label is never felt by the hearing population because in an audio-dominant world, there’s no such thing as a mandatory sign language test. It’s no surprise, then, that systems fail to design for what dominant culture does not see or value: the creativity, brilliance, and depth of deaf culture."

Read more of Designing against the deaf tax.

Sponsored: The Small Business Accessibility Playbook for WordPress

This 44-page ebook created by Equalize Digital discusses accessibility on small business websites, including relevant accessibility laws, accessibility benefits, and recommended WordPress tools.

Download the Small Business Accessibility Playbook ebook.

News, resources, tools and tutorials

• How continuous accessibility can boost your accessibility maturity (event - meetup.com/a11ynyc)
• Ten simple ways to make your social media posts accessible (blog post - digitalaccesstraining.com)
• Mind The (remediation) gap (blog post) - tpgi.com
• Designing for accessibility: A checklist for designers (blog post – accessicart.com)
• Accessibility testing guide (resource - github.com/alphagov/wcag-primer)
• Legal update: October 2024 (blog post – convergeaccessibility.com)
• Disabled and obscured (blog post – html5accessibility.com)
• The button element (blog post – heydonworks.com)
• Why should all organizations establish feedback mechanisms for accessibility? (blog post – cerovac.com/a11y)
• How to test JavaScript for accessibility compliance (blog post – a11y-collective.com)
• Unlocking accessibility: Content designers share their experience and advice (blog post – accessibility.blog.gov.uk)
• JavaScript dos and donts (blog post – muan.co)
• My experience voting as a person with a disability (blog post – deque.com)
• Why optimizing your Lighthouse score is not enough for a fast website (blog post – smashingmagazine.com)
• Eleven HTML best practices for login and sign-up forms (blog post – evilmartians.com)
• The details and summary elements are getting an upgrade (blog post – stephaniestimac.com)
• Locking in accessibility best practices early for a performing arts center (blog post – equalentry.com)
• Accessibility reads: Thursday, November 7 (blog post – deque.com)
• TechShare Pro 2024 (event – techsharepro.performedia.com)

Sponsored Classifieds

Accelerate, automate, audit, and manage your team's WCAG efforts using comprehensive accessibility testing software. Start your 14-day free trial of Accessible Web's RAMP today!

New to A11y

Alistair Shepherd has published an anti-overlay client letter that's useful if you're getting questions about accessibility overlays. I appreciate Alistair's approach in explaining overlays in unemotional detail with justification and evidence.