Web Design Update: September 22, 2026

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 27, Issue 13, September 22, 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: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: TOOLS.
09: USABILITY.
10: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

WCAG Process for Assigning Levels
By Alastair Campbell.
"…The difficulty is that if we only used a metric of what matters to users, WCAG would not be taken up by laws and regulations…"
https://alastairc.uk/blog/2026/09/wcag-leveling-process/

Accessible Content Creation (Video)
By Funka Foundation.
"…All content creators, everyone publishing on the website has at least a third of the responsibility for accessibility becoming a reality…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vZLTc1XO-Y

Spotting Accessibility Issues Early (Video)
By Stéphanie Walter.
"…Why would you wait for the development phase to fix something when you could already foresee it and prepare it in an accessible way in the design phase?…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKUXsCeTexc

How to Learn WCAG (Video)
By Cam Coulter.
"…You can't learn WCAG in an hour, but you can learn how to learn WCAG in an hour…In this presentation, Cam provided foundational context about WCAG and explained how to slowly and seriously learn WCAG like a professional…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2eFamjMVaw

Do Screen Readers Actually Read the Screen?
By Russ Weakley.
"Most screen readers never look at the rendered screen. Instead, they get information from the browser in two ways…"
https://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/do-screen-readers-read-screen.html

Your Accessibility Tests Stop at the Page. Your Users Don't.
By Karl Groves.
"…You've tested whatever rules the tool applies to whatever content you gave it… If a user can't finish checkout, a report showing zero automated violations doesn't help them…"
https://afixt.com/your-accessibility-tests-stop-at-the-page-your-users-dont/

PDF Remediation Quality Control: What Should You Check Before Publishing an Accessible PDF?
By Equidox.
"…An accessible PDF isn't one that passes a scanner. It's one that makes sense to a person who's never seen it…"
https://equidox.co/blog/pdf-remediation-quality-control-what-should-you-check-before-publishing-an-accessible-pdf/

Twenty Years Later: Measuring the Accessibility of the U.S. State Government Websites (PDF)
By Tanya Goette and Sean Lynch.
…"This research shows that even mandates have not yet had the desired effect… Accessibility must be integrated from the beginning of the design and development process rather than treated as a supplementary requirement in the evaluation phase…"
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1497&context=ciima

We Read 102 Accessibility Statements Written by EU Online Shops
By Scandiary.
"…The date is what makes the rest of it checkable…"
https://scandiary.com/accessibility-statements

Does Humour Belong in Accessibility?
By Steve Faulkner.
"One of my enduring good time work memories is the Viking and Lumberjack series…"
https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2026/09/16/does-humour-belong-in-accessibility/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Stop Treating CSS Container Queries Like Traditional Media Queries
By Victor Ayomipo.
"Despite broad browser support, container queries remain surprisingly underused and frequently misunderstood. Let's look at how they differ from media queries, when to reach for each, and how container queries help reusable components respond naturally to the contexts in which they appear…"
https://smashingmagazine.com/2026/09/stop-treating-css-container-queries-traditional-media-queries/


+03: COLOR.

Dark Mode vs Light Mode: Effect on Reading Performance in Low Vision
By Nazish Nazir, Muhammed Ijaz Ahmad, Noor Fatima, Muhammad Imshad Khan, Eman Zahid, Mehronisa, Nimra Shahzad, Imama Nadeem, Hira Javaid, and Sibgha Naseem.
"…No single display mode is unambiguously superior for people with low vision…"
https://zenodo.org/records/22746449

Dark Mode Checklist
By Russ Weakley.
"This checklist covers some of the most common things to check when reviewing a design or interface in dark mode…"
https://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/dark-mode-checklist.html

Simple Steps for Declaring a Dark Mode Colour scheme
By Russ Weakley.
"This article covers the basics of setting up a dark mode colour scheme: how to tell the browser which schemes your site supports, and how to provide light and dark values.…"
https://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/dark-mode-theme.html


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Do Participants Say Less to AI Than to Human Moderators?
By Lucas Plabst, Jeff Sauro, Eva Sundberg, and Jim Lewis.
"…The AI moderator also scored significantly worse than the human moderator on context-aware follow-up and on building trust, even though the two were indistinguishable on procedural adherence…"
https://measuringu.com/do-participants-say-less-to-ai-than-to-human-moderators/

Stop Wasting Research (Video)
By Jake Burghardt and Laura Klein.
"If you've ever wrapped up a great research study, delivered the readout, and then watched the insights vanish into a folder no one opens again, this one's for you. Laura Klein talks with Jake Burghardt, author of Stop Wasting Research, about why a repository alone never gets research used, how to treat insights as durable business assets instead of one-time reports, and where generative AI genuinely helps - and where it doesn't - for getting more value out of research your organization already has…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm9Lq_T5rcg


+05: EVENTS.

WCAG-EM 2.0: the Accessibility Evaluation Methodology, Updated with Sarah Pulis and Julie Grundy
September 23,2026, 12:30-1:15 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST)
Online
https://intopia.digital/articles/free-webinar-wcag-em-2-0-the-accessibility-evaluation-methodology-updated/

The Accessibility Expert Is Not Coming
September 28, 2026.
Barcelona, Spain
https://www.eventbrite.es/e/a11y-bcn-accessibility-barcelona-september-meetup-tickets-1998777755071

A11y Camp
November 23-25, 2026.
Sydney, Australia
https://a11ycamp.com.au/

Accessibility Club
October 6, 2026.
Nuremberg, Germany
https://accessibility.club/event/accessibility-club-meetup-15-20


+06: HTML.

What Are Form Controls?
By Russ Weakley.
"The term "form controls" is used all the time in accessibility, but there is no single, clear definition of exactly what it includes. This article is my attempt to provide one…"
https://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/what-are-form-controls.html

What Is Palpable Content?
By Russ Weakley.
"I wrote an article on HTML content categories. However, it didn't cover one of the key content categories: palpable content. So, let's look at palpable content now…"
https://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/what-is-palpable-content.html


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Let's Unfuck the Mobile Web (Together!) (Video)
By Bruce Lawson.
"Why can't we have nice things? Rich and powerful people, that's why. Whether it's common land, fresh water supplies and clean rivers, intellectual property or the open web, rich and powerful people love to steal them from us, fill them full of shit, then sell them back to us. Together, we can stop them."
https://londonwebstandards.org/talks/lets-unfuck-the-mobile-web-together/

Ctrl+Alt+Choose: The Fight for Your Browser Choice (Video)
By Gerardo Proaño.
"For years, choosing your default browser on Windows has meant fighting through pop-ups, dark patterns, and quiet nudges designed to keep you exactly where Microsoft wants you: on Edge. This talk pulls back the curtain on the tactics shaping browser competition today…"
https://londonwebstandards.org/talks/browser-choice-alliance/

Digital Ocean Killed CSS-Tricks… Again (Video)
By Kevin Powell.
"…They all deserve to get paid what they are owed by a company that's worth like 10 plus billion dollars…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_upvxCAUzM

CSS-Tricks Could Be a Co-op
By Eric W. Bailey.
"…CSS-Tricks repeatedly gave me the opportunity to write for them. In doing so, the immense popularity and huge reach of the publication helped to both socialize and normalize accessibility as a mainstream frontend concern…"
https://ericwbailey.website/published/css-tricks-could-be-a-co-op/


+08: TOOLS.

Page Structure Bookmarklets Explained
By Intopia.
"These bookmarklets help you inspect the overall structure of a page, including headings, images, lists, landmarks and language. Use them to quickly identify how key page content has been marked up…"
https://intopia.digital/resources/page-structure-bookmarklets-explained/


+09: USABILITY.

Focussing on User's Needs Means Web Inspiration Can Come From Anywhere
By Andy Davies.
"…If you remove the product, client, sector or industry from the equation and just try to solve the core user/customer problem, inspiration can come from anywhere…"
https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/focus-on-the-user-need/


+10: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

AI Boom Could Leave an E-Waste Trail That Wraps 6 Times Around Earth
By Dan Robinson.
"Report says estimates focused on GPUs miss the mountains of power, cooling, and networking gear destined for scrap…"
https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2026/09/19/ai-boom-could-leave-an-e-waste-trail-that-wraps-6-times-around-earth/5297451


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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