"Can the iPhone do that yet?" Back in 2008, Stephen Fry published a list of things that he wished the iPhone could do. Has the future caught up? shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09...

It's only 4 weeks until the first Access:Given, a one-day digital accessibility conference in Newcastle Upon Tyne. We're excited to be supporting this event and its female founders. There are only a few tickets left - you can find out more information on the website: buff.ly/plgNx4u

We need a new term for “best practice”. It feels optional. Like “what you’ve done is fine, but here’s how others do it.” In reality, when we say best practice, we mean “this is a definite accessibility barrier, we just can’t log it as a failure in the scope of this standard.” #accessibility #a11y

every team should have a little bit of internet to call their own, where they can publish texts, images, ideas, experiments, etc it doesn't sound like a lot to ask. but in most organisations, it's very hard to make happen.

Introducing WCAG for humans: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines manually summarised on one page in 7 practical themes: AndrewHick.com/humans ♿️ Feedback welcome! Many thanks to Martin Glancy for reviewing the draft and @tempertemper.bsky.social for the initial inspiration. #accessibility #wcag

What’s one thing you wish was more widely known about digital accessibility? I’ll go first. I wish more developers knew how to check elements for accessible names, roles and values. #accessibility #a11y

Music Sales by format from 1973+ www.visualcapitalist.com/music-indust...

A thing I wrote and I want to share again: Don’t stop being creative because of some silly narrative about being replaceable. Create because you exist, share as an act of humanity, and create because you can. Selfishly, I want to see what you make. That will always matter. It is the best of life.

There's no "why" in AI. It's getting better at reading an image to predict its alt text - but can't yet know why the image is there. Is this cat here for comedy, or is the bed for sale? Check your auto generated alt text before publishing! (That's my #AI hot take quota for this year) #accessibility

Sky says trans rights

Enjoy colours and accessible design? Here’s a mosaic of 262 curated colours inspired by art, nature, travel and culture. They’re in rough rainbow order, and text is black or white depending on which has the best contrast. AndrewHick.com/colour 🌈 #colour #color #noAI

If you had to change your bio to a song lyric what would it be? I'm torn between "I'm a humble guy with healthy desire" (pixies) Or "I'm not a prophet or a stone age man just a mortal with potential of a superman" (Bowie) Let's hear yours x

A lot of good points. I understand IAAP are looking into recent feedback but agree that the current requirements for gaining credits seem unnecessarily strict.

★ New blog post: The (not quite new) GOV.UK brand The refreshed GOV.UK logo and brand design has launched today. Here's some background on it, from my perspective working on it. https://beeps.website/blog/2025-06-25-the-not-quite-new-govuk-brand/

@gerireid.com - Shift left on accessibility londonwebstandards.org/talks/shift-... #a11y

Nice post from @tempertemper.bsky.social about Focus Priming - clicking a webpage to continue tabbing or reading from that point - which there was previously no word for. www.tempertemper.net/blog/focus-p... ⏭️ #accessibility #testing

Work in UK government and interested in accessibility? The next cross-government Accessibility Quarterly meet up is on Thursday 1 May from 1pm to 3:30pm. Register in advance using your government email address events.teams.microsoft.com/event/410025...

Making things digitally accessible isn't extra work, it is just part of the work. That is all. #Accessibility #AccessibilityRegulations #A11y

A nice, balanced guide on using technologies such as AI responsibly in the world of accessibility

I love this talk and have been sharing it wherever I can at work! The title says it all really.

New blog from Kelly Clarkson and Samantha Merrett asking accessibility people about the most common misconceptions, issues and tools we come across. Quick, early checks for common issues can easily eliminate a wide range of barriers. accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2025/02/28/u... #accessibility #a11y

"The question we should be asking is how non-disabled people can advocate with—not for—disabled people.” - @sfdirewolf.bsky.social #axecon

I can't quite put it into words, but I know EXACTLY how The Beastie Boys would have read this poem

Loved speaking at Service Design Bristol yesterday on making services accessible. Slides are on AndrewHick.com/sdb . Nicely organised and the prototyping talk really got me thinking too. Photos: James Reece.

Thanks so much Priyanca, really enjoyed being there and great to see you!

Sending many hugs to all trans and nonbinary people across the world and especially in the US 🤗

Accessibility and intersectionality with @priyanca.bsky.social (dedicated to Vicky Teinaki). We discuss #dyscalculia, intersectionality, and the complexities of managing multiple access needs, as well as common service barriers and tips for designers. accessiblenumbers.com/accessibilit...

New blog post! Our accessibility audit of the UK Met Office's weather forecast app, what we learnt along the way and the positive impact of monitoring on an already strong app 🌦️ accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2025/01/14/a... #accessibility #a11y #mobile

Insightful recent article by @ashleemboyer.com on why AI cannot represent disabled people. ashleemboyer.com/blog/how-to-... "Disabled people don’t need nondisabled people to understand the details of our accessibility needs. We need nondisabled people to believe us and take us seriously."

THE TOP 50 GUARDIAN HEADLINES 2024 - RANKED! part 1, 50-26 50. How I turned my gap year into an ethical-criminal "dementerprise" 49. Could Trump's war on NATO's "Axis of Woke" save the marmoset? 48. Microdosed and hairless in the bath, I sang old CND protest songs

I meet adults who are frustrated by the inability of young people to google things how we did at their age, seems to be from losing touch with how it's all trash now. our lives either don't need it as often or we take for granted we gradually learned to work around slop as it festered with alt text

With Wolf Hall coming to an end on the BBC I thought I'd post an old birthday card I made for my mum several years ago - Thomas Cromwell meets Che Guevara. #VivaLaReformacion

Our report on 3 years of #accessibility monitoring is live! 16,000 barriers removed across the UK public sector, the most common are contrast, focus, keyboard and reflow. Chris Heathcote's blog and link to the Government Digital Service report: accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/17/w... 📜 #a11y

On day 7 @tink.uk illustrates how good AI is at accessibility. #HTMHellAdventCalendar htmhell.dev/adventcalend...

Recently added a colour switcher and support for reduced motion to AndrewHick.com . Feedback welcome, bonus points if you know what the low contrast mode is inspired by. Thanks so much to @5t3ph.bsky.social and Elvis Ansima for the easy to follow code!

Nice creative use of the GOV.UK prototype kit to make an accessibility advent calendar! 🎅🏻👑

If you feel like you don't know what you don't know about accessibility, it can help to follow folks who discuss assistive technology, accessibility and disability. Here's a Bluesky list of people who post a lot about those topics. bsky.app/profile/did:...

🙏🏿 Dear smart person, 🏆 What is the best accessibility audit report you've ever come across? What can reports improve? Multiple answers possible 📈 I feel like there's a lot of room for improvement 🛠️ Audit practices don't align with how we want to fix things #accessibility

Cheeky repost 2: if I wanted to encapsulate how I test into one page, it's the WCAG decision tree. This distils 55 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 success criteria into groups of themed tests, and helps me work out which criteria fail. github.com/andrewhick/a...

Insightful article - Lauren demonstrates the importance of many things we ask for in our monitoring, like responsive sites, page titles and text as text (not just images). I also wonder how web consistency will work as more content gets presented through AI rather than websites? 🤔

What would you say is the most difficult element of trying to learn accessibility? Regulations? WCAG? Technical elements like ARIA? #accessibility

Lovely to see so many new people on Bluesky! Cheeky repost: Here's how we test each Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 criterion in detail, created by a team of #accessibility specialists in Government Digital Service. This is the basis for our detailed monitoring. github.com/alphagov/wca...

I created a web accessibility and inclusion starter pack. Comment with your favourite accessibility folks, and I'll add them to the list. #a11y

Digital accessibility isn't just about code details or assistive technology. Much of it is about the best ways of publishing content, that makes it readable and usable by as many people as possible accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/05/u... #a11y #accessibility

Which icon would best denote ideas from humans (not AI?) 1. brain which is also a face having an idea 2. heart and crossbones 3. friendly light bulb 4. DNA helix H (for human?) This would help celebrate human creativity, like an "organic" label, but for ideas. #AI #RealIntelligence

Mapa WCAG 2.2 - por tema - en español! Web Content Accessibility Guidelines transport style map translated to Spanish with the help of the amazing Carmen Ruiz Seco. Full maps and description: AndrewHick.com/wcag-es 🇪🇸 #accessibildad #wcag

If there were to be a universal symbol to help identify human-generated content, what would it be? I'm thinking a brain or hand. A lot of AI content currently appears to be denoted by sparkles, which is nice I suppose ✨

It was fun to collaborate on this guidance and work out how best to interpret the new criteria 😀 #accessibility #wcag

Bonus midweek #jobs newsletter because there won't be one at the weekend - newsletter.digitalbydefault.jobs/internet-of-...

“I don’t have accessibility needs” Yes, you do. You may not identify as having a disability but I know for a fact you’re using accessibility already. Embrace this need for yourself and others, we need you to do that to keep making accessibility a priority.