Issue #497
Featured: Design and engineering solve different problems; AI initiatives are forgetting that
“When organizations ask designers to adopt CLI tools, git-based workflows, and code-generation pipelines, the work gets treated as modernization—mostly about learning new tools and moving faster. But design work doesn’t start where those tools start. It starts earlier, in ambiguity, competing constraints, and questions that don’t have clear answers yet. It makes sense of a problem space before committing to a solution. That requires a different process, not a faster version of an engineering one.”
Read more of Design and engineering solve different problems; AI initiatives are forgetting that.
Sponsored: AAArdvark’s free plan isn’t a trial - it’s an actual workspace
No credit card, no 14-day countdown, no feature gates. You get a full workspace with automated scanning, Visual Mode, fix guidance, and unlimited team members for one page. Use it to evaluate the platform on a real project, not a sandbox. When you’re ready to scan more pages, upgrade. If one page is all you need, keep using it for free, forever. We’d rather you start than wait.
Create your free workspace in AAArdvark.
News, resources, tools and tutorials
- Quick tip: Don’t use abbr (blog post - tarnoff.info)
- Life as an accessibility specialist: What you need to know (blog post - testwithlabrador.com)
- The fox, pdfs and screen readers (blog post - ozewai.org)
- Beware of “AI” accessibility audits (blog post - afixt.com)
- There’s no need to include ‘navigation’ in your navigation labels (blog post - tempertemper.net)
- Ask Aimee: An accessible accessibility-focused AI chatbot (blog post - webaim.org)
- The design brief that never mentioned disabled people (blog post - gbbns.co)
- New bookmarklet – Structure revealer (tool - a11y-tools.com)
- Supporting communication access with AAC (blog post - equalentry.com)
- Making emojis and icons screen reader accessible (blog post - blog.pope.tech)
Sponsored classifieds
Free Webinar: Elevating the Web: An Adventure in Web Accessibility - Nora Guy (CPACC) will take you on a storytelling adventure through the world of digital accessibility. Live captioned. Pre-approved for IAAP CAECs. Thursday, May 7 at 10 AM CDT.
Accelerate your entire portfolio’s digital accessibility with Accessible Web RAMP, from WCAG audit checklists to long-term automated violation monitoring. Start your free 14-day trial today!
Learn how to test Android apps for accessibility. This training covers real issues in real apps, built for developers, QA, and accessibility specialists. #SeriousAboutAccessibility
New to A11y
Forms are hard. They don’t have to be that way. Beeps has put together a newbie’s guide to designing good web forms with a few helpful tips. My favorite tip? Accept answers. “As much as possible, be flexible with what format an answer can be given in” Nods enthusiastically.
Suggestions and corrections
Have a suggestion for something to be included in Accessibility Weekly? Did I make a mistake that doesn't belong on the Internet? You can either reply to this email or send a note to hello@a11yweekly.com.
Sponsorships and donations
You can sponsor Accessibility Weekly! For details, check out the sponsor page. If you or your company is interested, send a note to hello@a11yweekly.com.
If you enjoy the newsletter, consider making a donation.