Andrew Hick

Soft launch of a lil tool I've been working on: You plug in a list of hex colours and it'll give you previews, the contrast ratios and WCAG scores for each possible combination of those colours.

https://colors.beeps.gay/?colors=FFFFFF,F5F5F5,0FF10F,0BC148,252134,302750,7C56FC

Please don't hug […]

If your venn diagram niche is

public benches
service design
accessibility

then I have a short blog post for you

What's with all of the missing park benches? – Rich Blake share.google/CkdeSUmPbX7T...

WCAG map close-up showing an AA station on two lines, plus text "1.4.5 Images".

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines transport map is now in vector format, and Brazilian Portuguese. Vector code is on GitHub. Map: AndrewHick.com/wcag Big thanks to Bruno Pulis, Ana Cuentro and Josh W Comeau for the vector tutorial!

This is really well written - so many subtle ways organisations can use to manipulate your decisions. Removing "stopping cues" can definitely add anxiety.

5 reasons why WCAG AA compliance does not mean your website is accessible 5 reasons why WCAG compliance does not mean accessible accessible

It's common to hear "fully accessible" to describe products which pass WCAG 2.2 AA. But, are they really?

In this post, I explore 5 examples of why WCAG, as awesome as it is, is not a measure of great usability or performance.

www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2025/5-...

#accessibility #a11y #wcag

YouTube video by Rare Disease Day Accessibility for Printed & Digital Content

My webinar on making printed and digital content #accessibility is now available as a standalone video with descriptions and captions in: English, Ukrainian, Malay, Arabic, Czech, German, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish.
youtu.be/AO9XXkrACtU?...

This Halloween, the Dept. for Supernatural Affairs* invites you to take part in a haunted accessibility exercise.
ghost-sighting.lorithomson.co.uk password = ‘Halloween’
Each page contains accessibility issues and clues.
*Definitely (not) a made-up department and service.
Happy Ghost Spotting!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: why accessibility could be your biggest sales advantage Businesses lose nearly £446 million every BFCM weekend because of inaccessible websites. Learn how accessibility boosts conversions, loyalty, and sales, and how to prepare for the biggest shopping weekend of the year.

Little reminder that an inaccessible website means lost customers, and lost revenues.
From the article: "Research shows UK businesses collectively lose £17.1 billion a year because shoppers using assistive technology abandon websites that don’t work for them...

YouTube video by Inclusive Design 24 #id24 Kaye Moors / Brain Overload: The Silent Barrier to Inclusive Design #id24 2025

Catching up on Inclusive Design 24 and can strongly recommend Kaye Moors' presentation on Brain Overload - great points about cognitive accessibility and stakeholder buy in 👏 m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij_y...

Can the iPhone do that yet? While farting around online, I stumbled across this 2008 Time Capsule from Stephen Fry. In it, he discusses the state of mobile phones - diving into the problems with BlackBerry's and Apple's latest o...

"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...

Access:Given | Digital Accessibility Conference in Newcastle Upon Tyne Join us on 10th September 2025 for Access:Given, a one day digital accessibility conference in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

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.

Thanks so much Adrian, all great points. I'll have another look at the wording soon and I didn't know Audio Description was in doubt. Also wondering, given the nuances of WCAG, if some sort of general caveat at the start might be useful.

Colourful stripes

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

Infographic titled "Music Sales 1973-2022" showing total revenue by format. A circular chart displays relative sizes of revenue from CD ($367B), vinyl, cassette, paid streaming, and other formats. Below, a timeline graph illustrates revenue trends, highlighting the dominance of CDs, the decline of physical formats, and the rise of digital and streaming services. Notes on vinyl's resurgence and digital formats' current dominance are included.

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.

Black fluffy cat amusingly spreadeagled on its back in the middle of a bed

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

Photo of the sky above a hill in silhouette, a gradient from dark blue to light blue to white (or light grey) to pinkish-orange

Sky says trans rights

Thanks so much! I might have to trademark WunCAGround 😁

262 colour blobs in mainly concentric circles, from red at the top and clockwise in rainbow order. Greys are in the middle. Full description on AndrewHick.com/colour

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

Maybe "raised on a diet of broken biscuits" (Pulp) 🍪

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.

The (not quite new) GOV.UK brand A little behind the scenes from a gear in the machine.

★ 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

Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams

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