Web Design Update: May 25, 2026

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 26, Issue 48, May 25, 2026.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web
design and development.

++ISSUE 48 CONTENTS.

SECTION ONE: New references.
What's new at the Web Design Reference site?
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/
New links in these categories:

01: ACCESSIBILITY.
02: BOOKS.
03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
04: COLOR.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
07: HTML.
08: JAVASCRIPT.
09: MISCELLANEOUS.
10: TOOLS.
11: USABILITY.

SECTION TWO:
12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

New Office of Accessibility Resource: WCAG 2.1 Role-based Materials
By Minnesota IT Services.
"Check out our new WCAG 2.1 role-based info pages."
https://mn.gov/mnit/media/blog/?id=38-749758

How to Write Accessible Dates
By Josh Crawford.
"This article explains why common date formats like numeric dates and
abbreviations can create barriers for screen reader users and people
from different cultural backgrounds. It offers practical guidance on
writing dates in a format that's clear, unambiguous, and easy to read
for all audiences…"
https://www.digitalaccesstraining.com/pages/articles?p=how-to-write-accessible-dates

Quick Wins That Move Accessibility Forward - Fast
By Dennis Deacon.
"…Alternative text is not a compliance artifact, it is a user experience layer…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/quick-wins-that-move-accessibility-forward-fast/

Keyboard Accessibility: The Clearest Signal of Digital Maturity
By Dennis Deacon.
"…If an interactive element cannot receive keyboard focus, it is
functionally invisible to keyboard users…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/keyboard-accessibility-the-clearest-signal-of-digital-maturity/

Accessible Forms Are a Business Imperative, Not a Compliance Checkbox
By Dennis Deacon.
"…Labels are not optional. Placeholders are not labels…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/accessible-forms-are-a-business-imperative-not-a-compliance-checkbox/

Why Automated Accessibility Testing Is Not Enough: A Leadership Perspective
By Dennis Deacon.
"…automation and accessibility are not synonymous. Treating them as
equivalent is one of the most consequential mistakes a digital team
can make…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/why-automated-accessibility-testing-is-not-enough-a-leadership-perspective/

GAAD 2026: Not Much to Celebrate, Yet
By Sheri Byrne-Haber.
"…We cannot declare victory until we do not need GAAD…It is a painful
reminder that people with disabilities still do not have the equal
access we are supposedly entitled to."
https://buttondown.com/access-ability/archive/gaad-2026-not-much-to-celebrate-yet/

New Podcast, GAAD, and Purposeful Anger
By Nicolas Steenhout.
"Accessibility is work…At this point, most organizations do not have
an awareness problem. They have a prioritization problem…"
https://buttondown.com/nic-steenhout/archive/new-podcast-gaad-and-purposeful-anger/

What Global Accessibility Awareness Day Really Means
By Dennis Deacon.
"…The real question isn't 'Did your organization acknowledge GAAD?'
It's 'What changed because of it?'…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/what-global-accessibility-awareness-day-really-means/

Beyond Awareness: Keeping Accessibility Momentum Alive After GAAD
By Dennis Deacon.
"…Within the Next 30 Days: Conduct a maturity assessment if you have
not already done one.… Within the Next 90 Days: Embed accessibility
into your definition of done.… Within the Next 12 Months: Build an
accessibility metrics dashboard that reaches leadership.…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/beyond-awareness-keeping-accessibility-momentum-alive-after-gaad/

Maybe Don't Rely on Google's "Modern Web Guidance"
By Adrian Roselli.
"…If you already have to use an LLM to vibe-code for your job,
Google's Modern Web Guidance is kind of like a Band-Aid / Elastoplast
for a gaping chest wound. Don't count on it making conformant
performant hamformant output…"
https://adrianroselli.com/2026/05/maybe-dont-rely-on-googles-modern-web-guidance.html

The Impact of AI on Digital Accessibility, Part I
By Ricky Onsman.
"…AI can speed up the process, but it should never be the final authority…"
https://onsman.com/the-impact-of-ai-on-digital-accessibility-part-i/

The Impact of AI on Digital Accessibility, Part II
By Ricky Onsman.
"…Let's continue by exploring some more pros and cons of using AI in
digital accessibility…"
https://onsman.com/the-impact-of-ai-on-digital-accessibility-part-ii/

AI and Accessibility: Why Inclusive Design Must Be Built Into AI From the Start
By Dennis Deacon.
"…Errors do not stay small when AI is involved…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/ai-and-accessibility-why-inclusive-design-must-be-built-into-ai-from-the-start/

AI-Generated Accessibility, an Update - Frontier Models Still Fail,
but Skills Change the Game
By Michael Fairchild.
"Frontier models alone aren't going to fix this.…The newest frontier
models…still fail accessibility checks by default."
https://dev.to/mfairchild365/ai-generated-accessibility-an-update-frontier-models-still-fail-but-skills-change-the-game-5629

Section 508 vs. WCAG: What's the Difference?
By Vispero Team.
"Section 508 establishes accessibility requirements for federal
environments, while WCAG provides the technical success criteria
organizations use to evaluate and improve accessibility…Because
Section 508 incorporates WCAG 2.0 Level AA by reference, WCAG serves
as the practical mechanism organizations use to meet accessibility
requirements…"
https://vispero.com/resources/section-508-vs-wcag/

National Federation of the Blind v. DOJ & HHS (PDF)
By National Federation of the Blind (NFB).
Defendants: Department of Justice (DOJ), Acting Attorney General Todd
Blanche and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"Inaccessibly designed webpages and apps can render the internet
unusable for the blind…The compliance deadlines… were transformational
to their daily lives…"
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:2870fd06-a655-4d57-a5b8-d21e0d7953af


+02: BOOKS.

Pre-order "Digital Accessibility Ethics"
By Adrian Roselli.
"Lainey Feingold, Reginé Gilbert, and Chancey Fleet gathered 36
authors across 10 countries and a commonwealth to write 32 chapters
about ethics in digital accessibility. I am one of those 36 authors…"
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/11/pre-order-digital-accessibility-ethics.html


+03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

The State of CSS Centering in 2026
By Temani Afif.
"Centering can be hard, and that's fine. It doesn't mean you are
stupid…It's not about picking a code that works, and you're done. It's
about understanding how alignment works…"
https://css-tricks.com/the-state-of-css-centering-in-2026/


+04: COLOR.

Color Contrast Deep Dive: Why Accessible Design Is Simply Better Design
By Dennis Deacon.
"…If users cannot clearly distinguish an element, they lose access to
the meaning that element was designed to convey. Usability does not
degrade gracefully in these situations. It collapses…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/color-contrast-deep-dive-why-accessible-design-is-simply-better-design/


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Task Writing for Usability Tests (Video)
By Maria Rosala.
"The tasks you give participants during a usability test can make or
break you study. Poorly written tasks lead users in the wrong
direction - and leave you with findings you can't really act on…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a-o8MRuBvQ


+06: EVENTS.

AI and Accessibility - What Have We Learned So Far?
June 12, 2026.
Online.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-D96ptahF20XdqoSP1x_SXc1Az9esQZ7qbsg95Uhhb7p4SA/viewform

Virtual Web Accessibility Training
June 17-18, 2026.
Online
https://webaim.org/training/virtual/

Pixel Pioneers
June 19, 2026.
Bristol, England, United Kingdom
https://pixelpioneers.co/

UXPA International 2026
June 22-26, 2026.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
https://uxpa2026.org/

UN Open Source Week 2026
June 22-26, 2026.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
https://www.unopensource.org/


+07: HTML.

Don't Put aria-label on Generic Elements Like divs
By Manuel Matuzović.
"…Browsers treat labeled generic elements very differently…"
https://www.matuzo.at/blog/2026/aria-label-generic-elements


+08: JAVASCRIPT.

Cool New Stuff Coming in ARIA 1.3
By Karl Groves.
"…ARIA 1.3 is not a magic accessibility upgrade…"
https://afixt.com/cool-new-stuff-coming-in-aria-1-3/

ARIA Done Right: Why Accessibility Starts with Better Decisions, Not More Code
By Dennis Deacon.
"…ARIA communicates meaning to assistive technologies. It does not
update the DOM or the event model…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/accessibility/aria-done-right-why-accessibility-starts-with-better-decisions-not-more-code/


+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Ad Infini­tum
By Matthias Ott.
"…The ad isn't next to the answer. The ad is the answer…Generative UI
doesn't link to your article, necessarily. It absorbs your article,
synthesizes it into a widget, and presents it as Google's own answer…"
https://matthiasott.com/notes/ad-infinitum

UK Competition Regulator Investigates Microsoft
By Bruce Lawson.
"…Which means that unless you take evasive action, you're being
snooped on by default…"
https://brucelawson.co.uk/2026/uk-competition-regulator-investigates-microsoft/


+10: TOOLS.

Releasing hihtml, a Supertool for HTML Validation, Link-Checking, and
Minification
By Jens Oliver Meiert.
"…Why you need to use so many tools and take so many steps to properly
check and process HTML?…"
https://meiert.com/blog/hihtml/


+11: USABILITY.

Getting Stuck in the eGates at the Airport (Video)
By Michael McIntire.
Michael McIntyre uses humor to highlight real usability and
accessibility issues, including unclear instructions, small text, and
no audio help.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bzgp1piAf94

Four Levels Of Customer Understanding
By Vitaly Friedman.
"…What people say, feel, think, and do are often very different
things…Instead of asking, we need to observe…"
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2026/05/four-levels-customer-understanding/

Demystifying Clickbait: You'll NEVER Believe What I Learned (Video)
By Nielsen Norman Group.
"…When a user clicks into your content, they should know what they'll
get or be in an emotional state reasonable for that information…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMB28SYMZ6k

The Evolution of the "Buy" Button: 1995-2026
By Alex Harper.
"From a clunky grey box on a 1995 dial-up screen to the invisible,
AI-driven 'zero-click' purchases of 2026, the 'Buy' button has evolved
into a seamless biometric handshake. We've spent three decades
systematically deleting the 'friction of thought,' turning the entire
physical world into a clickable, autonomous storefront."
https://webdesignerdepot.com/the-evolution-of-the-buy-button-1995-2026/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

Accessibility Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html

Association Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html

Book Listings.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html

Color Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html

Drupal Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.html

Evaluation & Testing Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html

Event Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html

HTML Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/html.html

Information Architecture Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html

JavaScript Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html

Miscellaneous Web Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html

Navigation Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html

PHP Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html

Sites & Blogs Listing.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html

Tool Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html

Typography Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html

Usability Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html

WebWaste & Sustainability Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webwaste.html

XML Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html

[Section two ends.]


++END NOTES.


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+ SIGN OFF.

Until next time,

Laura L. Carlson
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009
mailto:lcar...@d.umn.edu


[Issue ends.]