Mark Steadman

Appt News (Accessible Mobile Apps) - Issue #75 Hey y'all, In this edition, we have a special guest bringing you the latest in accessibility news! Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats is an iOS engineer and native accessibility expert. You may know him fr...

The latest Appt Mobile Accessibility Newsletter is out! This time written by
@dadederk.bsky.social
appt.news/appt-news-ac... #iOS #Android #Accessibility #A11y

Can people just give a damn about making their content Accessible?

Even at a minimum level. It’s 2025. There are tools, guidance, and articles galore. Start giving a damn about making your applications in web and mobile accessible for everyone!!!

#Accessibility #Inclusion #A11y

GitHub - Steady5063/iOS-Automated-Accessibility-Example-Lib: Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues. Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues. - GitHub - Steady5063/iOS-Automated-Accessibility-Example-Lib: Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues.

The iOS Automated #Accessibility Example library has been updated! 🎉 🎉

The latest example is a snapshot test example.
The AccessibilitySnapshot library allows you to add an #A11y snapshot test.

github.com/Steady5063/i....

Intopia. 20-24 October. Invisible Disabilities Week. Not all disabilities are visible.

In Australia, 4.4 million people live with a disability. It is estimated that 80% of these individuals have an invisible disability.

Invisible disabilities can include chronic pain, ADHD, mental health, epilepsy, and many others.

Resource: intopia.digital/articles/mak...

GitHub - Steady5063/iOS-Automated-Accessibility-Example-Lib: Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues. Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues. - GitHub - Steady5063/iOS-Automated-Accessibility-Example-Lib: Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues.

The iOS Automated #Accessibility Example library has been updated! 🎉 🎉

The latest example is a snapshot test example.
The AccessibilitySnapshot library allows you to add an #A11y snapshot test.

github.com/Steady5063/i....

A threat model for accessibility on the web - Alice A explanation of the primary threat to accessibility on the web, and a call to action for the web standards community

“A threat model for accessibility on the web”
alice.boxhall.au/articles/a-t...

A deep, well-researched & cited piece detailing systemic failures down the web stack (standards bodies, browsers vendors, etc) which marginalize #accessibility and its voices — but with proposed solutions.

#a11y

So if you use a hint to associate an error message and a user has the preference shut off… welp, no error message will be announced

If you are developing native applications. Please remember that #Accessibility hints are made for extra context. NOT for key information.

Believe it or not, plenty of users of Talkback and VoiceOver disabled hints as they have become to cumbersome

4) Focus management.

My goodness. If I have Talkback or Voice over on, view to view I’d be lucky to find apps that have consistent focus placement.

But when trays/modals appear, focus becomes a nightmare, and makes a lot of apps so difficult to understand

3) Icon buttons like down arrows, X for close buttons, and profile icons not having proper description and therefore making the buttons purpose not clear at all

This issue persists EVERYWHERE and it alarming.

An example today: “down arrow sprite 2, button”. COME ON

2) Adding the word “button” and “heading” to #Accessibility labels. Instead of using proper semantics to make them identifiable.

Headings especially will not work with screen readers in iOS and Android if you add them as a label

1) Social media apps grouping content, but not allowing assistive tech users to access specific functionality like:

* comments
* likes
* reposts

Grouping content helps a TON but when it’s done incorrectly it can actually hurt more!

It is maddening how many mobile applications currently have so many fundamental issues when being used with assistive technologies

Here are trends I am seeing: (a thread)

Continuous AI for Accessibility: Build Better, Faster, Inclusive Software with GitHub • All Things Open 2025 Accessibility issues don’t have to surprise you — or your users. Continuous AI for Accessibility is an approach to building accessible products by embedding tools, AI, and best practices directly into...

Looking forward to speaking at #AllThingsOpen with @helen.blog on “Continuous AI for Accessibility: Build Better, Faster, Inclusive Software with GitHub” 🚀

If you’re working on #Accessibility, #OpenSource, or inclusive #AI come say hi after our session 👋

2025.allthingsopen.org/sessions/con...

GitHub - Steady5063/iOS-Automated-Accessibility-Example-Lib: Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues. Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues. - GitHub - Steady5063/iOS-Automated-Accessibility-Example-Lib: Example iOS project testing our accessibility issues.

The iOS Automated #Accessibility Example Lib is FINALLY here! I have been working on this for a bit, and I finally have my first example pushed. This library will house the different types of automation you can use with #iOS native application development.

github.com/Steady5063/i...

YouTube video by General Musings with Kevin Powell Navigating the World of Web Accessibility with Sara Soueidan

🎧 Listening (at 1.5x speed … 😅) to a wonderful conversation of two of my favourite people: @kevinpowell.co navigating the world of web #accessibility with @sarasoueidan.com 👏 #webdev #a11y
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndGK...

Screen reader driver for test automation | Guidepup Reliable automation for your screen reader accessibility test workflows with Guidepup. Drive VoiceOver and NVDA a11y tests with ease

Been messing with Guidepup this week, it is super cool!

It has it's flaws, but it is a really cool concept of trying to do some automated testing for screen reader functionality. Keyword, functionality, doesn't replace actual screen reader testing

www.guidepup.dev

There is an old term that comes to mind with AI, and that is "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", which means "Who watches the watchers".

An #Accessibility problem i can already see, are developers taking suggestions of tools and not knowing the impact. So who is watching AI to make sure its right?

Automated #Accessibility library has been updated!! 🎉

Puppeteer example is now out! Puppeteer is still one of the most popular testing frameworks, and luckily adding #A11y tests is easy! Check it out!!

github.com/Steady5063/A...

Trump's promise to end vote-by-mail is yet another attack on disabled voters The president credits democracy superfan Vladimir Putin with the idea. Yes, really.

“Eliminating this option through an executive order would not only be unconstitutional, it would add to the barriers many disabled voters already face, from inaccessible polling places to health risks.

Elected leaders should be expanding accessible voting options, not dismantling them.”

Creating Effective Automated Accessibility Test Cases One of the biggest fallacies in UI testing, especially when it comes to accessibility testing, is...

Dev teams are always looking for something that is fully automated. "Can we fully automate #A11y?" is always asked to me. No, we cannot.
However, are there ways to maximize the results to get the most value out of it to enforce good #Accessibility coding practices? You bet!

dev.to/steady5063/c...

From the RedditEng community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the RedditEng community

Pretty neat the layers of automation that Reddit is using for mobile iOS #Accessibility. check it out!

www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng/...

49 degrees in birchwood Wisconsin

On vacation in Northern Wisconsin. Might not come back with these temps!

📣 We’d like to hear from you!

Bluesky is rolling out age verification as part of the Online Safety Act, which aims to reduce the risk of children seeing harmful content.

We’ve heard that blind and partially sighted folks are unable to verify their age because it’s inaccessible. Have you tried?

Chart comparing Cypress, playwright, puppeteer, selenium, and webdriverio. Where WDIO, selenium are at the bottom and Playwright and cypress are at the top

Its pretty amazing the trend of testing frameworks for web flipping over the last 5 years. In years past, WDIO, selenium and Puppeteer were tops. Now Cypress, Playwright are far and away the leaders. The dope part is Cypress and Playwright both have #Accessibility testing features :)

For National Disability Awareness month we wanted to share the site caniplaythat.com. This site is dedicated to writing reviews and publishing news for all things related to video game accessibility. Keep up with what the industry is doing to keep their games accessible for the community!

WebAIM Accessibility in Mind Conference, Mark Steadman Fidelity Investments 'A Tangled Web of ARIA'

Super pumped to be doing this talk at WebAIM's, 'Web Accessibility in Mind' Conference. It's virtual and free on September 16th and 17th!

If you wanna see what happens when you don't care about semantic HTML and just use ARIA, then check this talk out!

#Accessibility #A11y

Inclusive Design 24 (#id24) A free 24-hour online community event on accessibility and inclusion

We're happy to finally unveil the full schedule for the upcoming Inclusive Design 24 #id24 24 hour online event on the 25 September 2025 inclusivedesign24.org/2025/schedule/ #a11y #accessibility #inclusiveDesign

I don't think the education and push to make things accessible changes, its more the "how" we give solutions.

Very generic example, if i put into Claude "hey make me CSS for my opening page", but i forget the word "accessible" in there, the color scheme won't include accessible colors

Also just another thing, it’s great how much time you can save with Claude. But at same time, I do miss just building everything from scratch myself. And I wonder if future devs will miss that grind and not learn the hard lessons.