I know someone that uses her screen reader on her mobile phone, but when she’s on her desktop computer, she uses a mangifier.

Different contexts, different tools, same person.

I know someone that uses voice controls on his computer. He uses direct commands like “Click Contact Us” when he’s near the start of his day, and commands like “Click link, twelve” when he’s near the end of his day with lower energy and less clear speech and a dry mouth.

Different energy/capacity, same tools, same person.

I know someone that uses a switch on his computer. He also uses the onscreen keyboard on his computer. The one that he chooses reflects the task he’s trying to accomplish and how he can minimize switching between the tools.

Different task, same context, same tools, same person.

Disability is not black and white… it’s every shade of every colour.

I immediately invited them to pitch us for the AI for Accessibility Grant Program that I ran for Microsoft. With so much focus on assistive technology to enable folks to work and accomplish common life tasks, I loved that the OneCourt team was interested in enabling people with disabilities to enjoy leisure activities like sporting events. Moreover, I saw the potential to enable Blind and low-vision parents to experience their kids’ sporting events, which could be life-changing for them.

Needless to say, they wowed both me and the rest of the seleciton committee. We funded them to expand their prototypes and pursue partnerships with different professional sports leagues, teams, and venues. They were ambitious and it’s paying off.

Fast forward a few years and they’re enabling a handful of Blind & low vision sports fans to exerience the Super Bowl in a whole new way, using their technology. It’s amazing and I could not be more proud of them.

Congrats y’all!

progressive enhancement is not about preventing failure, it’s about defining what must always work.

I also want one of those ”Wat als de JavaScript uit staat?“ stickers.

This new study, based on a 2025 online survey of 3,901 US consumers, confirms what many of us know: accessible technology empowers everyone. And with the rise of AI, we’re entering a new era of possibility.

One of the stats that’s likely to be surprising to many people is that people who identify as having disabilities and those who don’t both use assistive technology features at nearly the same rate.

Full details of the research report are here: Oh, The Things We Can Do Together — How Assistive Technology Is Unlocking Human Potential In The Era Of AI

ARIA Notify is an ergonomic and predictable way to tell assistive technologies (ATs), such as screen readers, exactly what to announce to users and when.

In its simplest form, developers can call the ariaNotify() method with the text to be announced to the user.

Here’s what it looks like:

// Dispatch a normal priority notificationdocument.ariaNotify(“Background task completed”,{priority:“normal”});

I’m particularly excited by this because of how much it simplifies the update process for engineers. Previously they needed to manage upates to an aria-live DOM node with the appropriate announcement level and hope for the best. This approach was plagued with issues ranging from lag — because, DOM manipulation — to confusion between whether “polite” or “assertive” was the right choice.

The ARIA Notify proposal is clear, concise, and far more likely to get used and — more importantly — used properly.

It’s currently in Origin Trial. Please give your feedback so we can get this into every browser sooner rather than later.

When one approach becomes “how things are done,” we unconsciously defend it even when standards would give us a healthier, more interoperable ecosystem. Psychologists call this reflex System Justification. Naming it helps us steer toward a standards-first future without turning the discussion into a framework war.

This whole piece is an excellent discussion about how tools can become an identity and why that’s a bad thing.

In a distressing moment, it’s like you’re rushing to the airport — you’re just looking for help right now. When you aren’t distressed, it’s like you’re on vacation. You can take your time, you’re more open to exploring.

In a recent study, the VA learned a lot from users navigating acute distress — and why typical UX patterns fail. This is highly recommended reading for anyone working in the design space.

To that end, this is a piece worth reading. To me, the golden nugget is this (when discussing who will succeed with AI agents):

[T]he winners will be teams building constrained, domain-specific tools that use AI for the hard parts while maintaining human control or strict boundaries over critical decisions. Think less “autonomous everything” and more “extremely capable assistants with clear boundaries.”

Fast forward to today and their project has launched! Please check it out and share it with any AAC users in your life!

You know what framework I want to use? I want a framework that aligns with the platform, not one that replaces it. I want a framework that values incremental innovation over user lock-in. I want a framework that says it’s OK to break things if it means making the Web a better place for everyone. Yes, that comes at a cost, but almost every good investment does, and I would argue that cost will be less expensive than learning a new framework and rebuilding buttons for the umpteenth time.

Step 2: Add in some HTML web components!

In this project, we built an entirely new markup-first architecture that minimizes the size of our bundles of code, and the amount of JavaScript code that runs during the initialization path of the UI. This new internal UI architecture is more modular, and we now rely on a repository of web components that are tuned for performance on modern web engines.  We also came up with a set of web platform patterns that allow us to ship new browser features that stay within our markup-first architecture and that use optimal web platform capabilities.

A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible, as of October 2023. In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website.

Linkrot, especially in government and legal scenarios, is a tremendous problem, which is why we need services like the Internet Archive and Perma.cc. If you have the means, please consider supporting these, and similar, projects!

Great summary here:

[M]y passion for accessibility stems from experiencing accessibility barriers personally, observing their impact on others, and holding the conviction that technology should tear down divides - not erect new ones. I want to fulfill, and help you fulfill, the web’s promise of equal access and opportunity for everyone, regardless of circumstances. Digital accessibility should not be an accommodation but a fundamental right and prerequisite for technology to truly better humanity.