Web Design Update: August 4, 2026

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 27, Issue 06, August 4, 2026.

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

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: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
03: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: EVENTS.
05: HTML.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: TOOLS.
08: TYPOGRAPHY.
09: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Tabbed Interfaces
By WebAIM.
"…Tabbed interfaces enhance space efficiency at the cost of increased complexity… Improperly implemented interfaces can make it difficult or outright impossible for keyboard users and screen reader users to access their content…"
https://webaim.org/techniques/tabs/

Accessibility Bugs Are Often Architecture Bugs
By Niharika P. Pujari.
"…Accessibility bugs are often visible at the component level, but their causes are frequently deeper…"
https://hackernoon.com/accessibility-bugs-are-often-architecture-bugs

Building Accessible Digital Experiences Through User Journey Testing
By Equal Entry.
"…We don't just 'scan' pages. We test user journeys…"
https://equalentry.com/accessibility-user-journey-testing-pac-nyc/

WCAG-ODC: An Orthogonal Defect Classification Framework for Web Accessibility Defects
By Mohammed Alannsary.
"…By bridging the gap between accessibility evaluation and defect analysis, this work advances accessibility research from a compliance-driven activity to a structured, data-driven, and analytically grounded discipline…"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44523-026-00010-y

From "Inaccessible" to Inclusive: A Practical PDF Remediation Demo: Samantha Merrett
By Equalize Digital.
"…The most accessible PDF is often no PDF at all…"
https://equalizedigital.com/from-inaccessible-to-inclusive-a-practical-pdf-remediation-demo-samantha-merrett/

The Evolution of PDF Standards: Accessibility, Security, and Compliance
By Vijayshree Vethantham.
"Learn how PDF standards have evolved from basic document sharing to supporting accessibility, compliance, security, and long-term preservation. Explore PDF versions, compliance standards, and the latest developments shaping digital documents."
https://pdfa.org/the-evolution-of-pdf-standards-accessibility-security-and-compliance/

Bend, Do Not Break: Building Resilient Accessibility Programs
By Sheri Byrne-Haber.
"…Conformance is a point-in-time measurement. Resilience is what determines whether that measurement still means anything eighteen months later…"
https://buttondown.com/access-ability/archive/bend-do-not-break-building-resilient/

Tech as Cognitive Accessibility: Designing Systems for ADHD Brains with Eleanor Beilby (Video)
By A11yTalks.
"…The goal isn't to make people try harder. It's to build systems that work when they can't…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MV6DR-7X6k

Three Stories About AI and Accessibility That Every CTO Will Recognise
By Robin Christopherson.
"…Accessibility is becoming one of the most useful lenses through which organisations can assess the trustworthiness of AI-enabled systems…"
https://abilitynet.org.uk/news-blogs/three-stories-about-ai-and-accessibility-every-cto-will-recognise

Mean What You Say and Stoic Accessibility (Video)
By Mark Miller and Justin Stockton.
"…Special Guest: Nicolas Steenhout. In this episode, we dive into practical insights on web accessibility through the lens of Stoic principles, evaluate the effectiveness of carousels, and discuss the importance of genuine inclusion in accessibility efforts. Join us as we explore how mindsets and real-world challenges intersect with creating accessible digital experiences…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkaSFnxVBc8

Kicking the Accessibility Can (Video)
By Myles Wallace.
"Please join me as I talk with Jack McElaney, who is the Publisher of 'Accessibility in the News,' about how we organizations can better prioritize digital accessibility, and why it matters now…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7F2NN5llyA


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Styling the Navigation: Declarative Route and Navigation Matching in CSS
By Bramus Van Damme.
"…We wanted to see if styling the navigation experience can be done declaratively instead, in CSS…"
https://www.bram.us/2026/07/30/styling-the-navigation-declarative-route-and-navigation-matching-in-css/

You Might Need to Know About The CSS lh Unit
By Ahmad Shadeed.
"A look at the CSS line height unit and how it works…"
https://ishadeed.com/article/css-line-height-unit/

2026 State of CSS Survey
By Sacha Greif.
Results are available.
https://2026.stateofcss.com/en-US


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

A/B Testing: A Complete Guide (Video)
By Deborah O'Malley.
"Most teams know A/B testing matters, but few run tests they can actually trust. Vague hypotheses, wrong sample sizes, peeking at results early, and misread outcomes quietly undermine the data and lead to design decisions built on shaky ground…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJDAUaq0j_k


+04: EVENTS.

All Things Open
October 17-20, 2026.
Raleigh, North Caolina, U.S.A.
https://2026.allthingsopen.org/

Digital Collegium (formerly HighEdWeb) Annual Conference
October 18-21, 2026.
Online and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
https://events.digicol.org/digicol26

ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization
November 5-7, 2026
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
https://conference.eaamo.org/

Accessing Higher Ground
November 16-20, 2026.
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
https://accessinghigherground.org/


+05: HTML.

Why I Built a Semantic-HTML First Library
By Karl Koch.
"…A Kernel <Button> is a <button… A Kernel <Select> is <select>, not a div with a popover pretending to be one…"
https://karlkoch.me/writing/why-i-built-a-semantic-html-first-library


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Are We Still Designing for Humans?
By Tom Greenwood and and Michael Andersen.
"…AI services need a thriving Internet full of rich information in order to do what they do, yet they simultaneously erode the incentive for people and organisations to invest in creating a thriving web. The snake is eating its own tail… The whole craft of accessibility has always been, underneath everything else, the craft of making meaning explicit…"
https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/are-we-still-designing-for-humans/

The Future of the Website
By Voost de Valk.
"Not dead. Not even close. But different: the website is becoming the verified, machine-readable home base of a business. It feeds every other surface…"
https://joost.blog/future-of-the-website/

This is Your Brain on AI: What We Lose When the Machine Thinks for Us (Video)
By Alec Barr.
"…In this controversial talk, Alec Barr explores the cognitive and human cost of our AI obsession through a pop-neuroscience lens - from cognitive offloading to artificial intimacy, to synthetic empathy and the quiet erosion of human judgement…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7K_UB_Xauk

AI: Considerations for People Who Make Decisions (Hat Tip/Steve Faulkner)
By Bert Hubert.
…"A chatbot is not an objective in itself…"
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/ai-for-decision-makers/

100 Lawmakers Urge DOJ to Withdraw Opinion Putting HCBS in Jeopardy
By Kimberly Bonvissuto.
"…This long-accepted interpretation has enabled hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities to avoid harmful and unnecessary institutionalization and remain connected to their families, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods and chosen communities…"
https://www.mcknightsseniorliving.com/news/100-democrat-lawmakers-justice-department-ada-olmstead-hcbs/

The Worldviews We Build With: Why Good Design Starts in the Spirit
By Elina Ashimbayeva.
"…Ethical design begins with awareness of the values that shape everyday choices…"
https://equalentry.com/ethical-design-human-values/


+07: TOOLS.

ARIA Testify Live Monitor
By Steve Faulkner.
"ARIA Testify Live Monitor is a free open source Windows desktop application for recording accessibility announcements exposed through Windows UI Automation…"
https://github.com/stevefaulkner/ARIA-testify#aria-testify-live-monitor

What Can't I Press?
By Eric W. Bailey.
"Lists what keyboard shortcuts are claimed…"
https://github.com/ericwbailey/what-cant-i-press


+08: TYPOGRAPHY.

WOFF 1.0: A Milestone on W3C'S Journey of Fonts on the Web
By Chris Lilley.
"…WOFF 1.0 was, therefore, the culmination of renewed conversations between the typography community and browser developers, a carefully judged set of 'good enough' compromises, and by early 2011, as soon as it was implemented, WebFonts started to take off…"
https://www.w3.org/blog/2026/woff-1-0-a-milestone-on-w3cs-journey-of-fonts-on-the-web/


+09: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

Evaluating Front-end Web Energy Consumption: Quantifying the Role of Caching, Cookies, Scrolling Behavior, and Data Volume
By Janne Kalliola and Juho Vepsäläinen.
"…Approximately half of the energy consumption related to the client-server model, such as the web, has been estimated to occur on the client side…It can be concluded that front-end energy consumption has only a moderate correlation with data volumes or the number of requests."
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3836737

Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG)
Alexander Dawson and Rose Newell, Editors.
W3C Group Note Draft updated 29 July 2026: "Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) provide actionable recommendations to help digital teams make informed, sustainable decisions. In considering different aspects of work and the web, these guidelines address the planet, people, and prosperity (PPP) impacts of digital products and services. They are interdisciplinary and cover artificial intelligence and emerging web technologies…"
https://www.w3.org/TR/web-sustainability-guidelines/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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.]

Laura L. Carlson
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/

W3C Invited Expert
Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/ag/participants

Pronouns: she/her/hers