Web Design Update: May 5, 2026

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 26, Issue 45, May 5, 2026.

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

++ISSUE 45 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: DRUPAL.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: TOOLS.
09: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility Fundamentals
By Erik Kroes.
"This is an introduction to accessibility: the removal of barriers for
people with disabilities. It answers questions like 'Why is
accessibility important?' and 'How can I remove barriers?'…"
https://www.inklusivo.nl/accessibility-fundamentals/

Busting the PDF Myth (Video)
By Khaled Musa.
"…The PDF didn't stop me; it just made the document harder for a
screen reader to process and impossible for a mobile phone to Reflow…"
https://mediaspace.umn.edu/media/t/1_k76cm6gj

9 Accessibility Myths and Pushbacks (And How to Answer Them)
By Stéphanie Walter.
"Reframes, evidence, and practical strategies to help designers
convince teams to invest in accessibility…"
https://stephaniewalter.design/blog/9-accessibility-myths-and-pushbacks-and-how-to-answer-them/

Do Graphs and Charts Need to Be Accessible?
By Martin Underhill.
"…So do charts and graphs need to be accessible? Yes and no. The chart
image itself doesn't always need to be exposed to assistive
technologies, but the information it communicates must be accessible."
https://www.tempertemper.net/blog/do-graphs-and-charts-need-to-be-accessible

The Banned Pot Noodle Ad That Changed TV Forever (Video)
By Chris Spargo.
"…You can't really say whether a flash on a screen would be harmful or
not unless you know how someone is going to be watching that screen…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAsyJF_WnhM

Accessibility Training for Everyone
By Andrew Kirkpatrick.
"…in partnership with our good friends at Knowbility, we've launched
Evinced Learn. It's our comprehensive new training platform designed
to bridge the gap between accessibility theory and real-world
execution. Between what's out there, and what you need. And we're
happy to say that it's completely free, so that everybody can take
advantage of it…"
https://www.evinced.com/blog/accessibility-training-for-everyone

Three Stoic Principles for Better Web Accessibility
By Steve Frenzel.
"When I listened to Arthur Brooks' podcast episode Four Practical Ways
to Live Like a Stoic with Ryan Holiday, I was surprised and excited to
see how it applies to my work as an accessibility practitioner. Among
other things, they talk about three principles, and in this article,
I'm going to discuss how they can help you in your everyday life doing
web accessibility work…"
https://piccalil.li/blog/three-stoic-principles-for-better-web-accessibility/

"Notice and Cure" Violates Civil Rights
By Karl Groves.
"…Anything less is not equal access. It is discrimination on a schedule…"
https://karlgroves.com/notice-and-cure-violates-civil-rights/

Tolerating Inaccessibility
By Christopher Phillips.
"The recent 2026 WebAIM Million report showed that across the top
1,000,000 websites, the number of distinct accessibility errors
detected by WAVE rose from 51 in the 2025 report to 56.1…"
https://webaim.org/blog/tolerating-inaccessibility/

What Ableism Looks Like: Examples Across Systems, Culture, And Self
By Megan Anna Neff.
"You probably encounter ableism more often than you realize…"
https://neurodivergentinsights.substack.com/p/what-ableism-looks-like-examples

AI is locking people out. At Scale.
By WebAccessBench
"This is not a minor bug trend. It is a systematic civil-rights
failure that has now found its way into software as a whole, through
lightning-fast adoption of AI systems that are trained on over 20
years of institutional barriers…"
https://conesible.de/wab/

Make Yourself a Bad Target: Two ADA Cases, One Lesson
By Jessica Chambers.
"Courts are starting to distinguish between real accessibility work
and quick fixes, meaning legal risk depends on whether you can show
ongoing effort and not just intent. Document what you're doing, fix
what you can, and make yourself a bad target…"
https://silktide.com/blog/make-yourself-a-bad-target-two-ada-cases/

Legal Update: April 2026
By Ken Nakata.
"April was a quiet month in the courts. The action this month was elsewhere…"
https://convergeaccessibility.com/2026/05/04/legal-update-april-2026/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Modern CSS Feature Support For Shadow DOM
By Adobe.
"Tracking the state of support for CSS features within and across the
shadow DOM to provide visibility into feature parity, usage details,
and outstanding issues and bugs…"
https://shadow-dom-css.adobe.com/

The Great CSS Expansion
By Pavel Laptev.
"CSS now does what Floating UI, GSAP ScrollTrigger, Framer Motion, and
react-select used to require JavaScript for. Here is exactly how much
that saves, why these libraries were painful beyond their size, and
what the platform still hasn't figured out…"
https://blog.gitbutler.com/the-great-css-expansion


+03: DRUPAL.

Headings the Right Way: Site Building Tips for Accessible Page Content (Video)
By Mike McCaffrey.
"…we are passionate about building Drupal sites that empower and
encourage editors to properly structure their content and provide the
headings needed for easy navigation (and passing accessibility scans).
Whether content on your site is managed using Field Groups, Twig
templates, Paragraphs, Layout Builder, Canvas, or just one big WYSIWYG
field, we have tips for how to set things up in a way will result in
far more accessible content and much happier users…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FELVQl35wXc

Future-Proofing Accessibility: Strategies for Government and
University Platforms (Video)
By Kat Shaw, Monica "Nikki" Flores, and Javier Reartes.
"This session explores how governments and higher education
institutions can move beyond basic compliance to truly implement
accessibility across their digital platforms. We delve into strategies
for integrating accessibility throughout the project lifecycle, from
initial planning and design to development, QA testing, and content
entry…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVxIsP605Fk

Full DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjQpb2cHv9rgQv4lvq1-ZkC3


04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Selection Criteria: How to Pick Your Participants
By Raluca Budiu and Therese Fessenden.
"Rigorous selection criteria protect study validity. Learn how to
define inclusion, exclusion, and diversity criteria to avoid costly
misrecruits. "
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/selection-criteria/


+05: EVENTS.

Accessible Names - Make It or Break It (Funka)
May 8, 2026.
Online
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_d7Hdtu_wQqi6elrVKyQqgA#/registration

Webinar: Lovable's AI Built a 100% Accessible Site - or Did It?
May 13, 2026.
Online
https://axesslab.com/webinar-lovables-ai-built-a-100-accessible-site-or-did-it/

A Systematic Approach to PDF Accessibility
May 19, 2026.
Online
https://www.accessibilityonline.org/ADA-Audio/session?id=111220

Creating Accessible Documents – The Basics (Part 1)
May 19, 2026.
Online
https://mainecite.org/trainings/creating-accessible-documents-the-basics-part-1-may-19-2026/

Digital Accessibility Fundamentals Training
May 21, 2026.
Online
https://accessibility.deque.com/gaad-2026-north-american-bootcamp


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Open Web vs AI: What Can W3C Do?
By Hidde de Vries.
"At last week's W3C Advisory Committee meeting, I ran a breakout
session on what to do about threats to the open web. We had an
interesting conversation. Many interesting points were raised, and
some disagreed the web needs saving at all…"
https://hidde.blog/web-ai-breakout/

Sir Tim Berners-Lee on the Internet, AI and the Future of Humanity
(Part 1) (Video)
By Tim Berners-Lee.
"The most influential inventor of the modern world, Sir Tim
Berners-Lee is a different kind of visionary. Born in the same year as
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Berners-Lee famously shared his invention,
the World Wide Web, for no commercial reward. Its widespread adoption
changed everything - transforming humanity into the first digital
species…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4jGrK13og0&t=305s

The Design-Minded Engineer
By Den Odell.
"Designers have been complaining for decades that what ships doesn't
match what they designed. The fix isn't better handoffs or AI tools.
It's engineers who can see what designers see…"
https://denodell.com/blog/the-design-minded-engineer

Wendy Fireside
By Steve Faulkner.
"I mistakenly thought that Wendy Reid was on the W3C TAG, I thought
this, as each time I have encountered her (including now by the fire),
she has struck me as brainiac. Wendy worked accessibility at Kobo, and
now at eBay. I hope you enjoy listening to Wendy speak as much as I
have…"
https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2026/05/04/wendy-fireside/


+07: NAVIGATION.

Why "Click Here" Is Letting Your Readers Down
By Josh Crawford.
"This article explains why link text like 'read more' and 'find out
more' creates barriers for screen reader users and anyone navigating
content out of context. It offers practical guidance on writing link
text that's clear, concise, and useful for all readers…"
https://www.digitalaccesstraining.com/pages/articles?p=why-click-here-is-letting-your-readers-down


+08: TOOLS.

Keyboard Testing With the POWER of AI!
By Steve Faulkner.
"I noted with interest the recent announcement by an accessibility
tool vendor that AI powered! keyboard testing has been introduced into
their product. I thought, hey I wanna piece of that AI easy action,
but I don't wanna have to sign up for a free trial…, get hooked and
pay the piper. So I tapped my friend ChatGPT to produce an AI powered!
test harness of my own…NOTE: the app/script uses no #AI by default,
you need to make your own deal with that devil…"
https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2026/04/29/keyboard-testing-with-the-power-of-ai/
Steve's Test Harness on GitHub:
https://github.com/stevefaulkner/keyboard-vibes#keyboard-vibes


+09: USABILITY.

How Reliable Is AI at Finding UI Problems?
By Jim Lewis, Jeff Sauro, Will Schiavones, and Lucas Plabst.
"Reliability matters. If AI produces different results each time, it
becomes untrustworthy, no matter how convincing its reasoning
sounds.'…"
https://measuringu.com/ai-usability-problem-analysis-of-a-video/


++ 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.


+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how
to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit:
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html
The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates.


+ TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN).

As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to
the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me
know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier.
For TEN guideline information please visit:
http://www.headstar.com/ten


+ 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.]