The Best Of The Internets

The disability personas contained in Sarah Horton & Whitney Quesenbery’s A Web for Everyone are a terrific resource, so I’m thrilled their available beyond the book now too.

About a year ago, the folks at Global Symbols pitched me on their vision for using image generation models to create new AAC symbols that fit thematically within an existing set. It was a truly compelling use case for generative AI and I was thrilled to fund their project through the AI for Accessibility grant program.

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

This is the kind of work that keeps me excited about the potential of AI to meaningfully improve people’s lives. I’m so proud to be playing a small part in this project.

I really appreciated Cory LaViska’s take on #WebComponents here. Especially this bit:

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.

This is a fantastic run-through of HTML and CSS features that help reduce our dependence on JavaScript (and improve #accessibility). Great work Kilian!

I love straightforward examples, like this one, of how to build progressively enhanced experiences in frameworks like React.

Step 2: Add in some HTML web components!

Progressive enhancement for the win! This post from the Edge team demonstrates that producing markup directly rather than relying on JavaScript to do it for you is faster — even in the browser UI!

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!

I agree with so much of this piece… especially the expansive view of accessibility that is inclusive of both the disability divide and the digital divide.

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.

My boss, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, went to New Orleans to interview Steve Gleason about his new book and so much more. It was originally recorded for an internal interview series, but we’ve made it public because it’s such an amazing conversation. Well worth your time.