Web Design Update: October 14, 2025

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 26, Issue 16, October 14, 2025.

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

++ISSUE 16 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: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
03: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: EVENTS.
05: HTML.
06: USABILITY
07: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Guide to the Inclusive Design Principles
By Henny Swan.
"…In this post, we'll look at who the principles are for, what they can be applied to, how they help people, and how you can integrate them into your own practices.In this post, we'll look at who the principles are for, what they can be applied to, how they help people, and how you can integrate them into your own practices…"
https://tetralogical.com/blog/2025/10/07/guide-to-the-inclusive-design-principles/

Designing for Dyslexia: Accessibility Requirements and Best Practices
By Sheri Byrne-Haber.
"…Designing for dyslexia is about reducing reading effort and creating flexibility…"
https://buttondown.com/access-ability/archive/designing-for-dyslexia-accessibility-requirements/

Designing Accessible Instructional Videos: The Role of Audio Description
By University of Minnesota.
"When creating instructional videos for your courses, accessibility should be a central consideration. …"
https://umn-extra-points.blogspot.com/2025/10/designing-accessible-instructional.html

Accessible Time Format
By Andrew Normand.
"…Hours and minutes should be formatted on the web using a colon (hh:mm)…"
https://ozewai.org/blog/newsletter/accessible-time-format

Tables: Beyond Rows and Columns
By Akash Shukla.
"There are many semantic HTML tags covered under WCAG SC 1.3.1: Info and Relationships, but in this article, we'll zoom in on one of the most misunderstood, the table…"
https://www.tpgi.com/tables-beyond-rows-and-columns/

Accessible Form Validation With Examples and Code
By Elle Smith.
"…Forms are how your users sign up for events, subscribe to a newsletter, make a purchase, or request more information. All critical interactions for an organization. When something goes wrong, and users can't complete a form, that's where error messages come in…"
https://blog.pope.tech/2025/09/30/accessible-form-validation-with-examples-and-code/

How to Test Your Form for Accessibility Issues With the WAVE Extension
By Pope Tech.
"Learn the different WAVE results you could get when testing a form for accessibility with WAVE and how to fix them…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03U9qYLIyi0

Testing Methods: Text Spacing
By Dennis Deacon.
"…The requirement is to ensure that when a user overrides the authored text spacing, content or functionality is not lost…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/web/accessibility/testing-methods-text-spacing/

Testing Methods: Content on Hover or Focus
By Dennis Deacon.
"…No single approach for testing 1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus is perfect. However, using the strengths of each approach in combination can have a positive effect…"
https://www.dennisdeacon.com/web/accessibility/testing-methods-content-on-hover-or-focus/

Accessibility Audits: Because Everyone Deserves to Stay in Focus
By Equal Entry.
"This post explains why accessibility audits are essential for websites and digital content…"
https://equalentry.com/accessibility-audits-focus-reflow/

"Straight to the Pool Room": The Risks and Pitfalls of Placing Accessibility Issues in the Backlog
By Charlii Parker.
"…In this article, we'll explore why digital accessibility issues should not be relegated to the backlog and the pitfalls of doing so…"
https://intopia.digital/articles/straight-to-the-pool-room-the-pitfalls-of-placing-accessibility-issues-in-the-backlog/

Crafting an All-Inclusive Narrative (Video)
By Denis Boudreau.
Denis' Web Accessibility In Mind Conference presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc6nMMiUm68

The Architecture of Anxiety and Shame, Part One
By Todd Libby.
"In the work and research I have done for a number of years now, I have found that the choices we make as developers, technologists, organizations and companies, founders and CEOs has come down to compromising humanity…"
https://toddl.dev/posts/the-architecture-of-anxiety-and-shame-part-one/

Digital Innovation, Emerging Technology and Accessibility With Léonie Watson
By Jo Morrison.
"…we interviewed Léonie Watson, co-founder and Director of accessibility consultancy TetraLogical, who shared how digital innovations are reshaping accessibility, where the risks lie, and what it will take to ensure innovation is both inclusive and sustainable…"
https://calvium.com/leonie-watson/

5.15 Million Dollar Settlement in California Web Accessibility Class Action
By Lainey Feingold.
"Fashion Nova website barriers spark lawsuit that should have settled…"
https://www.lflegal.com/2025/10/fashion-nova-settlement/

Stop Inviting Overlay Employees & Bad Actors Into Accessibility Spaces
By Chris Yoong.
"It hands them blueprints for exploitation, legitimacy and control…"
https://chrisyoong.com/blog/inviting-harmful-actors-into-genuine-accessibility-spaces-is-dangerous


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Simplify
By Jeremy Keith.
"…it's ludicrously straightforward. Just stick this bit of CSS on the containing element inside a media query (or better yet, a container query): display: flex; overflow-x: auto…"
https://adactio.com/journal/22178

How Much Do You Really Know About Media Queries?
By Daniel Schwarz.
"Earlier this year, I realized that I knew very little about possibly most of the media queries…"
https://frontendmasters.com/blog/learn-media-queries/

[Web Development for Beginners] CSS: Learn the Essentials Quickly
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"…In the previous chapter, we used HTML to create unformatted content. In this chapter, we use CSS to configure the style of that content: We can change the color of the background, use various fonts, add vertical spacing, etc…"
https://2ality.com/2025/10/css-basics.html


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Stop Misrecruits: Add Foils to Your Screener
By Rachel Banawa.
"Foils are fake (but plausible) options in screeners that catch inattentive or dishonest participants, protecting data quality and saving time."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/screener-foils/


+04: EVENTS.

Tools and Techniques of a Blind Accessibility Auditor with Jeanine Lineback
October 16, 2025.
Online
https://knowbility.org/programs/be-a-digital-ally/october-2025

Accessibility Basics with Gian Wild
October 21, 2025 at 11am Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT).
Online
https://events.humanitix.com/accessibility-basics

WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2 Additions with Gian Wild
October 22, 2025 at 11am Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT).
Online
https://events.humanitix.com/wcag2122

Results From Latest EN301549 Requirements Beyond WCAG-Workshop with Detlev Fischer, Malin Hammarberg, Peter Kemeny, and Wilco Fiers
October 23, 2025.
Online.
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dC5Z_Iq2QAG8k4tzHuvr4A

History of Accessibility with Gian Wild
October 28, 2025 at 11am Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT).
Online
https://events.humanitix.com/history-a11y

Continuous Al for Accessibility: Build Better, Faster, Inclusive Software with GitHub with Carie Fisher & Helen Hou-Sandi
October 29, 2025.
Online.
https://a11ytalks.com/posts/2025-oct

Part 3: Web Accessibility Basics - Manual Mobile Testing
November 12, 2025.
Online
https://accessingenuity.com/pages/webinar/part-3-web-accessibility-basics-manual-mobile-testing-digital-accessibility-webinar


+05: HTML.

HTML - The Most Difficult Programming Language in the World
By Jens Oliver Meiert.
"…If you're a professional who puts HTML on your resume: Ship valid HTML. This is the minimum to be expected of our work, even when our manager or our client doesn't ask for it. It's not that hard."
https://meiert.com/blog/the-most-difficult-programming-language/


+06: USABILITY.

Inattentional Blindness in Interfaces (Video)
By Megan Chan.
"Inattentional blindness is a phenomenon where we miss something that's in plain sight because our attention is focused elsewhere."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWJZowq-V4o

Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
By Raluca Budiu.
"iOS 26's visual language obscures content instead of letting it take the spotlight. New (but not always better) design patterns replace established conventions."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/liquid-glass/

Apple's Liquid Glass Design Prioritizes Content Over Tools
By Adam Engst.
"…there's an important point to make here: controls are not tools. Controls allow you to adjust settings-change channels, select colors, pause playback, and more. Tools enable you to create, modify, delete, or give a performance. It's the difference between a volume knob and a violin…function must dictate form, not the other way around…I would urge developers of productivity apps-of real tools-to think long and hard about how to keep their interfaces discoverable, accessible, and readable."
https://talk.tidbits.com/t/apple-s-liquid-glass-design-prioritizes-content-over-tools/32080

Human Oversight of Automated Decision-Making (PDF)
By TechDispatch.
"…This TechDispatch explains what ADM is and critically examines common assumptions underlying human oversight of ADM systems, revealing why many such beliefs are unsupported and in practice do not improve the quality of the decisions taken by the system. These misconceptions risk fostering a false sense of security, potentially allowing flawed algorithms to operate unchecked under the veneer of human control…"
https://www.edps.europa.eu/system/files/2025-09/25-09-15_techdispatch-human-oversight_en.pdf


+07: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

RGESN Statements: The Clash of Words, the Weight of Measures
By Laurent Devernay.
"…For this article, we measured the home pages of websites with an RGESN declaration based on the latest version of the standard. No clear correlation emerged between the measurement results and the reported progress scores…"
https://greenspector.com/en/rgesn-statements-the-clash-of-words-the-weight-of-measures/

[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+08: 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