Weekly Reading List December 22 2025

This is the last Weekly Reading List for 2025. We will recommence publication from January 19 2026.

• Podcast: The State of Accessibility – Episode 15
  Vispero: David Sloan is joined by Matt Ater, Jeremiah Rogers, and Mitchell Evan for a year-end recap of the digital accessibility landscape.
• Download the December Update of JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion 2026
  Vispero: offering new functionality and enhancements that increase efficiency and productivity.
• Webinar: Building a Complete Accessibility Program: From an Audit to Long-Term Inclusion
  Vispero: Join David Sloan and Amy Major for a practical and insight-driven webinar designed to help organizations build a complete, start-to-finish, digital accessibility program. January 29 2026 at 12noon ET.
• Gillibrand Leads Bipartisan Push To Increase Accessibility Of VA Technology
  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): urged the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to take swift action to make its technology accessible to people with disabilities.
• TPAC 2025 Breakouts recap
  W3C: A handful of themes stood out this year.
• W3C Invites Implementations of IMSC Text Profile 1.3
  W3C: IMSC 1.3 defines a text-only profile of [ttml2] intended for subtitle and caption delivery applications worldwide.
• Updated Candidate Recommendation
  W3C: Dubbing and Audio description Profiles of TTML2.
• Updated Candidate Recommendation
  W3C: CSS Color Adjustment Module Level 1.
• Group Note Draft
  W3C: RDF 1.2 Interoperability.
• Video: Leading Inclusive Digital Transformation — Accessibility
  W3C: Shawn Lawton Henry, W3C WAI Director, introduces accessibility, W3C, WAI, and WCAG.
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
  W3C at #ID24: Shawn Lawton Henry and Kevin White update on WCAG 2, WCAG 3 (it’s a long way off), and what’s between.
• The anatomy of an accessible video player (on TV)
  Alicia Jarvis: An accessible TV video player isn’t one feature. It’s a system.
• 3 color contrast mistakes designers still make
  Allie Paschal: WCAG color contrast is more than just text.
• Forced Colors Mode
  Chris Ferdinandi: what is, how it affects designs, and how to build for it.
• Why accessible video is still not possible on Instagram
  Chris Yoong: The core issue lies in the lack of support for industry-standard accessibility features.
• German auditors reject accessibility overlays in EAA context
  Chris Yoong: Use of accessibility widgets disqualifies websites from BIK certification.
• A Decade of Accessibility Weekly
  David Kennedy: It may be one of the most impactful things I’ve made during my career.
• Testing Methods: Labels or Instructions
  Dennis Deacon: ensures that users understand what is expected when interacting with input fields and controls.
• Testing Methods: Error Identification
  Dennis Deacon: highlights the importance of clear, actionable feedback when users make mistakes.
• Testing Methods: Consistent Help
  Dennis Deacon: emphasizes the critical role of predictability and reliability in user support mechanisms across digital experiences.
• Testing Methods: Change on Request
  Dennis Deacon: emphasizes that any changes to the user interface or content … should occur only when explicitly requested by the user.
• Testing Methods: Consistent Identification
  Dennis Deacon: designed to ensure that components with the same functionality are consistently identified across a digital experience.
• Testing Methods: Consistent Navigation
  Dennis Deacon: emphasizes predictability and familiarity in digital experiences.
• Testing Methods: On Input
  Dennis Deacon: designed to preserve user control and prevent confusion caused by unexpected changes when interacting with input elements.
• 6 web accessibility Christmas facts
  Diana Khalipina: The holidays highlight something research has shown for years: accessibility is deeply contextual.
• Why we need to rethink web accessibility through Lean Impact?
  Diana Khalipina: compliance alone doesn’t tell us whether people’s lives are actually better because of it.
• Christmas as a moment to understand how others experience the world
  Diana Khalipina: 10 Christmas activities that gently open conversations about accessibility naturally.
• Web accessibility beyond disability: International Migrants Day
  Diana Khalipina: one group is still rarely mentioned: migrants.
• How web accessibility specifically helps women
  Diana Khalipina: t quietly supports millions of women every day, often without them ever using the word “accessibility”.
• The Cost of Our Judgments
  Grace Dow: Moments taken out of context often invite the harshest interpretations.
• Targeting by Reference in the Shadow DOM
  Eric Meyer: If we’re going to have a Shadow DOM, the least we can do is make it as accessible and useful as possible.
• Don’t leave the screen reader hungry
  Geri Reid: Screen readers don’t always announce what’s visually on screen.
• Is Calibri woke, or simply more accessible?
  Helena Ferry: switching back to Times New Roman actually reduces accessibility.
• My 2025 review
  Hidde de Vries: Here’s some of my reflections and highlights in work, music, and travel.
• Hell is other people’s markup
  Ian Lloyd: The HTML De-Crapulator can provide many ways to simplify markup.
• WhatsApp Web and Messenger Accessibility Fixes
  Jamie Teh: while the accessibility of the UWP app was quite decent, the web app has some major accessibility problems.
• Complying with WCAG is not all for websites (PDF)
  Jianan Lyu: Accessibility issues and solutions faced by users with dyslexia when accessing WCAG-compliant websites.
• Is it an evil overlay? How can you tell?
  Joe Dolson: where do we draw the line between a potentially useful tool and an evil overlay?
• The many lives of the page title
  Katrin Kampfrath: A page title identifies or describes a page and as such reassures us that we are indeed on the chosen page.
• In 2025
  Kim Grey: Another year, another review.
• A look back at web accessibility in 2025
  Kazuhiko Tsuchiya: look back at web accessibility in 2025, and feel like, “That was something that happened.”
• A11y Considerations in Math on the Web
  Manuel Sánchez: the main assistive technologies are in different stages, as we will see.
• Accessibility is personal
  Matthias Zöchling: Is making the web more accessible rewarding? That too.
• Beyond Compliance, The Hidden Benefits of Web Accessibility
  Maxwell Ivy: We can’t simply depend on fear of compliance regulations, lawsuits, or negative publicity.
• Accessibility Contrast Disagreement Explorer (APCA vs WCAG)
  Mike Gifford: Explore how different color combinations respond to APCA & WCAG testing.
• Semantics beyond the tag name
  Nathan Knowler: There is a terrible epidemic that plagues the web: divitis.
• Onwards into the unknown
  Peter Torres Fremlin: Setbacks and soulmates: a disabled look back on 2025
• Why role=”button” on a <button> does nothing
  Russ Weakley: This example highlights a common point of confusion about how ARIA works.
• Did you know some ARIA roles remove child semantics?
  Russ Weakley: Understanding which ARIA roles replace structure, and which merely reinforce it, is important.
• Tests for aria-labelledby and aria-describedby
  Russ Weakley: aria-labelledby and aria-describedby do not ask the browser to discover text automatically.
• More about screen reader speech queues
  Russ Weakley: a single example to show why they don’t always behave the way you might expect.
• How aria-labelledby really works
  Russ Weakley: The aria-labelledby attribute lets you use existing text on the page to name another element for assistive technologies.
• Does Chrome get the <header> element wrong?
  Russ Weakley: Chrome is not misinterpreting the “ARIA in HTML” specification.
• Five accessibility trends to watch in 2026
  Sheri Byrne-Haber: These are not speculative shifts. They are already underway.
• What Continuous Improvement Model is Best for Accessibility?
  Sheri Byrne-Haber: the Plan-Do-Check-Act approach offers a simple starting point.
• Giving pages a clear shape by using headings
  Steve Barnett: We can make our pages easier to understand by using headings.
• In conversation Fireside with Web Existentialist – Eric Bailey
  Steve Faulkner: a thinker and prodigious developer/advocate of accessibility practice and disability rights.
• Dialog view transitions
  Thomas Günther: the <dialog> element has a lot of built-in features that make it accessible and user friendly by default.
• AI and variables: Building more accessible design systems faster
  Tobi Olowu: I had an accessible design system up and running in just a few days.
• Financial sector accelerates digital accessibility efforts, 2025 survey
  AbilityNet: only a third of finance sectors expect their organisation to increase spending on digital accessibility into 2026.
• AbilityNet wins recognition award at RIDI’s 10th Anniversary
  AbilityNet: received a Recognition Award at the 10th anniversary of the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI) Awards.
• From Advocacy to Action: Sharron Rush on 25+ Years of Digital Inclusion
  Accessibility Craft 148: Executive Director of Knowbility, one of the most widely recognized nonprofit organizations focused on digital inclusion globally.
• EN 301 549 Accessibility Standard
  Allyant: EN 301 549 applies broadly to ICT; however, EN 301 549 is not a law itself.
• Making an iOS E-Commerce Product Detail Page Accessible to VoiceOver and Beyond
  Axess Lab: how I improved the VoiceOver experience on the Product Detail Page .
• Our Favourite Things of the Last Year
  Centre for Accessibility Australia: the accessibility features, tools, and stories that stood out to us in the last year.
• Podcast: Webhosting Providers Need to Treat Accessibility as Infrastructure
  Cloudways: Saad Khan, Director of Product Marketing at Cloudways, and Chris Hinds, COO at Equalize Digital, discuss.
• The Quiet Unwinding of Civil Rights and Democracy
  Converge: DOJ rescinds its Title VI Disparate Impact Regulation.
• Beyond Compliance
  Disability Belongs: Why Accessibility Must Be Built into Organizational Culture.
• Adapting UX research for neurodiversity and cognitive disabilities
  Fable: Learn how to adapt UX research for cognitive testers.
• The most common cognitive barriers in digital experiences
  Fable: When it comes to cognitive accessibility, many common design patterns create friction.
• Cognitive accessibility toolkit
  Fable: will help you make the most of cognitive accessibility research with Fable Engage.
• Colour Contrast Checker
  GrackleDocs: Color contrast is fundamental to creating inclusive digital experiences.
• Digital Accessibility Laws in Australia
  GrackleDocs: Australia treats digital accessibility as a discrimination issue, not a “nice extra”.
• Digital Accessibility Laws in Canada
  GrackleDocs: Canada has been quietly but firmly wiring digital accessibility into law.
• The Curb Cut Effect
  Level Access: How Digital Accessibility Elevates UX for Everyone.
• 2025: A Year in Review
  Minnesota IT: 2025 was a big year for digital accessibility.
• Data visualization accessibility: Focus on color
  Minnesota IT: Make your data visualizations more inclusive—starting with color.
• Common misconceptions about implementing accessibility
  TetraLogical: Misconceptions about how to implement accessibility are common.
• Windows Narrator HTML Support
  TetraLogical: A Work in progress: Last updated 10 December 2025. Editors: Grace Snow, Steve Faulkner.
• Retail Search Accessibility
  UsableNet: A Screen Reader User’s Holiday Shopping Experience.
• Norway’s HelsaMi Case
  UsableNet: Daily Accessibility Fines and EAA-Era Compliance.
• Anti-Scraping Tools Undermine Web Accessibility for Disabled Users
  WebProNews: these often hinder accessibility for users with disabilities by breaking compatibility with screen readers and assistive tools.
• Reading List, Dec 2025
  WebAxe: A dozen articles you should read.
• Dynamic Datalist: Autocomplete from an API
  Aaron Gustafson: the benefits of native autocomplete with the flexibility of dynamic data.
• Wrapping up 2025 (sort of)
  Andy Bell: I’m doing my annual wrap up post early this year because I’m really tired
• Smashing Animations Part 7: Recreating Toon Text With CSS And SVG
  Andy Clarke: Sadly, some splitting solutions don’t deliver an always accessible result.
• Styling by Language
  Julia Undeutsch: Using the lang Attribute for Multilingual Design.
• What Are UX Research Deliverables?
  MeasuringU: Here’s a list of common UX research deliverables classified as interim, final, and artifacts.
• How To Measure The Impact Of Features
  Vitaly Friedman: Meet TARS — a simple, repeatable, and meaningful UX metric designed specifically to track the performance of product features.