One of the things I do at TPGi is compile a weekly reading list for our Chief Accessibility Officer, culled from 434 RSS feeds and 42 email lists and newsletters. The focus is on focus on digital accessibility, web dev or design, general web tech,
and disability.
Weekly industry news update for CAO
Inside GAAD 2025: Lessons Learned and Strategies to Move Accessibility Forward
Melissa Morse: key moments and resources from GAAD 2025.
https://www.tpgi.com/inside-gaad-2025-key-takeaways-lessons-learned/
Webinar: Managing Risk and Improving UX
David Sloan: How to Prioritize ADA Title II Digital Accessibility Efforts, June 11, 2025 at 12pm ET
4 Tips to Make Food and Hospitality Kiosks Accessible for Everyone
Melissa Morse: physical access, screen readers, visual cues, usability testing.
https://www.tpgi.com/4-tips-to-make-food-and-hospitality-kiosks-accessible-for-everyone/
Cutting Edge Meets Agility: New JAWS Version Coming Soon for Multi-Line Braille Displays
Vispero, APH, and HumanWare announce enhanced experience for users of multi-line braille displays.
From Risk to Resilience: Bridging Legal Compliance and Technical Execution in Accessibility
James Thurston & Ken Nakata: highlight the stakes and propose strong and sustainable solutions when it comes to accessibility.
Colorado OIT Amends Accessibility Rule
Ken Nakata: Colorado is the unquestionable leader in public sector web and digital accessibility.
https://convergeaccessibility.com/2025/05/21/news_colorado_oit_amends_oit_rule/
Washington State Mandates Open Captions in Theaters
The fifth U.S. jurisdiction to require open captions in movie theaters.
https://deaffriendlyconsulting.com/announcement/washington-open-caption-law-movie-theaters/
Canadian Digital Accessibility Laws Overview
Monika Prasad: highlight what they mean for digital products, and share useful links.
https://www.digitala11y.com/canadian-digital-accessibility-laws-overview/
New Privacy Principles for a more trustworthy web
Tara Whalen: Last week, W3C published its Statement on Privacy Principles.
https://www.w3.org/blog/2025/new-privacy-principles-for-a-more-trustworthy-web/
Zero Project Call for Nominations 2026
Focused on the topics of Accessibility, ICT, and Crisis Response.
https://zeroproject.org/research/zero-project-call-for-nominations-2026
Only one-third of organisations directly engage with disabled people in digital accessibility efforts
Sarah Sarsby: A new survey from Applause, which specialises in digital quality.
Accessibility Report 2025
Email Markup Consortium: Accessibility in HTML emails remains critically under-addressed in 2025.
https://emailmarkup.org/en/reports/accessibility/2025/
ASR Technology Showing Signs of Plateau
3Play Annual Study: human review remains essential for meeting accessibility standards.
Download the Free 2025 State of ASR Report: https://go.3playmedia.com/rs-2025-asr
https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/2025-asr-report-release/
Video: Ask the Professionals – CMS and Accessibility
Moderated by OZeWAI Committee Member Ricky Onsman (TPGi), with Amber Hinds (Equalize Digital), Mike Gifford (CivicActions), and Ricky Blacker (WPEngine).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TB54ksDnB8
My Request to Google on Accessibility
Adrian Roselli: if your team cannot explain how the thing satisfies all WCAG Success Criteria at Level AA, then don’t release the thing.
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/05/my-request-to-google-on-accessibility.html
Make Screen Readers talk with the ARIA Notify API
Alexander Lehner: let the screen reader announce a specific text. This is the idea behind the new ARIA Notify API.
https://www.oidaisdes.org/aria-notify-first-look.en/
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) reflections just before European Accessibility Act (EAA)
Bogdan Cerovac: awareness alone is not enough.
Testing Methods
Dennis Deacon: Prerecorded Extended Audio Description
Third-Party Solutions & Accessibility – A Primer
Dennis Deacon: customer push back in including third-party solutions in scope for audits.
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/web/accessibility/third-party-solutions-accessibility-a-primer/
The caption element
Heydon Pickering: The <caption> element has nothing to do with closed captions.
https://heydonworks.com/article/the-caption-element/
Running for the AB
Hidde de Vries: These are my answers to the Meet the candidates questions.
https://hidde.blog/ab-meet-candidates/
A Deep Dive into the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act of 2025
Karl Groves: The Problem This Act Solves.
Are you sure that table isn’t a list?
Martin Underhill: The thing about a table is, it’s rigid; necessarily so.
https://www.tempertemper.net/blog/are-you-sure-that-table-isnt-a-list
A11y 101: 1.4.12 Text Spacing
Nat Tarnoff: Who needs this flexibility?
https://tarnoff.info/2025/05/19/a11y-101-1-4-12-text-spacing/
How to Convince People to Care and Invest in Accessibility
Stéphanie Walter: Making the Case for Accessibility: Empathy, ROI, and Real Change
https://stephaniewalter.design/blog/how-to-convince-people-to-care-and-invest-in-accessibility/
The creative power of constraints
Arun Venkatesan: Constraints are the primordial soup from which creativity arises.
https://arun.is/blog/creative-power-constraints/
Video: Inclusive Design Patterns: From Gen-Z To to Aging Audiences
Vitaly Friedman at Beyond Tellerand 21 May 2025.
https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/btconf-dusseldorf-2025-video-vitaly-friedman
Video: There Is No Spoon
Léonie Watson at Beyond Tellerand 21 May 2025.
https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/btconf-dusseldorf-2025-video-leonie-watson
Video: Painting With the Web
Matthias Ott at Beyond Tellerand 21 May 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pq7VqNrtk4
Podcast: Accessible design systems
UXPodcast: Karen Hawkins, accessible design practice lead at Level Access.
https://uxpodcast.com/339-accessible-design-systems-karen-hawkins/
You can style alt text like any other text
Andy Bell: one of those nice touches that will elevate your user interface.
https://piccalil.li/blog/you-can-style-alt-text-like-any-other-text/
A Reader’s Question on Nested Lists
Juan Diego Rodríguez: a nested list, where each sublist marker/counter is of a different kind.
https://css-tricks.com/a-readers-question-on-nested-lists/
Expanding/collapsing with Details
Andrew Downie: So far I have not found a screen reader that has any issues.
https://ozewai.org/blog/technical-articles/expanding-collapsing-with-details/
The problem(s) with image accessibility
Oded Sharon: Consider the following code that should work, but contains flaws that harm the page’s
accessibility.
https://blog.scottlogic.com/2025/04/23/img-and-accessibility.html
The 4 Motivations for Accessibility – The Big WHY?
Nir Horesh: business, curb cut, legal, inclusion.
https://www.nira11y.com/post/the-4-motivations-for-accessibility-the-big-why
Color Contrast and Readability: The Cornerstones of Accessible Design
Michael Beck: few topics are as fundamental—or as overlooked—as color contrast and readability.
https://afixt.com/color-contrast-and-readability-the-cornerstones-of-accessible-design/
Finding the Joy in Alt Text
Bryn Newell: we should begin to care a little more deeply about alt text.
https://bryn.codes/writing/the-joy-in-alt-text/
3 Tools to Help Fix the Web’s Most Common WCAG 2.2 Failures
Miranda Michalski: Lighthouse, axe, WAVE.
https://spin.atomicobject.com/fix-common-wcag-2-failures/
Building A Practical UX Strategy Framework
Paul Boag: create a playbook, including for accessibility.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2025/05/building-practical-ux-strategy-framework/
What Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance Can Teach Us About Web Design
Frederick O’Brien: Robert M. Pirsig’s musings on the arts, sciences, and Quality ring as true now as they
ever have.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2025/05/what-zen-art-motorcycle-maintenance-teach-web-design/
Video: Empathy in Automation
Sharon Steed in conversation with Aaron Gustafson on inclusive, human-centered automation.
https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:7330624084201852928/
::pseudo-elements?
David Bushell: I don’t like pseudo-elements. At least not where they’re going.
https://dbushell.com/2025/05/23/pseudo-elements/
Podcast: The design of web design
Noel Minchow interviews Miriam Suzanne on CSS origins, the cascade, accessibility, and the balance between user control and brand expression.
https://podrocket.logrocket.com/design-of-web-design-miriam-suzanne
What people think about AI in the Accessibility Industry
What our respondents answered on this very on trend topic.
https://a2i.co.uk/blog/ai-and-accessibility/
AI is now used for audio description.
Kathryn Locke & Tama Leaver: But it should be accurate and actually useful for people with low vision.
Podcast: Flipping the Script on Audio Description: Time to Think Outside the Vox
Thomas Reid: talking about American Sign Language, Audio Description, live captioning and more.
https://reidmymind.com/flipping-the-script-on-audio-description-time-to-think-outside-the-vox/
Defining RACI Roles for Improving Digital Accessibility
Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
https://www.accessarmada.com/blog/defining-raci-roles-for-improving-digital-accessibility/
What is a Conforming Alternate Version and when would we use it?
When inaccessible digital content may be unavoidable and have cause for a secondary accessible version.
https://mn.gov/mnit/about-mnit/accessibility/news/?id=38-683740
Level Access’s Commitment to Employee-Centric Culture Validated by Two Awards for Chief People Officer Colleen Wood
The 2025 OnCon Icon Award and DCA Live HR Leaders of the Year Award.
https://www.levelaccess.com/news/level-access-chief-people-officer-colleen-wood-receives-two-awards/
Inclusive user research: building rapport
Ela Gorla: how can you build trust and mutual understanding with disabled participants?
https://tetralogical.com/blog/2025/05/23/inclusive-user-research-building-rapport/
How Global Brands Are Preparing for EAA Compliance in 2025
How UsableNet Can Help.
https://blog.usablenet.com/how-global-brands-are-preparing-for-eaa-compliance
25 Years of Digital Accessibility with UsableNet
Jason Taylor: What’s Changed, What Hasn’t—and Why UsableNet Is Built for What’s Next.
https://blog.usablenet.com/25-years-of-digital-accessibility-with-usablenet
How to Talk to Clients About the European Accessibility Act
Chris Hinds: leaders and long-term thinkers who care about their customers’ success.
https://equalizedigital.com/how-to-talk-to-clients-about-the-european-accessibility-act/
Accessibility Testing on Windows on Mac
Tatyana Bayramova: A quick guide to Accessibility Testing using Windows-only tools on a modern Mac with Apple Silicon processor.
https://tatanotes.com/blog/accessibility-testing-on-windows-on-mac/
TikTok Rolls Out New Accessibility Updates
Alt text, screen reader support, text size, dark mode, auto-captions, photosensitivity support.
https://www.tiktok.com/accessibility/en
Exploring iOS 18’s New Accessibility Features for Speech
Live Speech, Personal Voice, Switch Control, Listen for Atypical Speech.
https://www.eastersealstech.com/2025/05/22/exploring-ios-18s-new-accessibility-features-for-speech/
Polypane 24.1
New Measure tool, XML viewer and Find by CSS selector.
https://polypane.app/blog/polypane-24-1-new-measure-tool-xml-viewer-and-find-by-css-selector/
Apple Unveiling New Accessibility Features
Shaun Heasley: App Store accessibility labelling, Braille support on Apple products.
https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2025/05/20/apple-unveiling-new-accessibility-features/31461/
So you think you want an Accessibility Advisory Council?
Sheri Byrne-Haber: What to do, and more importantly, what to avoid
https://buttondown.com/access-ability/archive/so-you-think-you-want-an-accessibility-advisory/
Smith’s Hill principal’s story shows accessibility is everyone’s business
[ disclosure: my kids went to Smith’s Hill and I consider David a friend ]