+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 26, Issue 18, October 28, 2025. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 18 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: HTML. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. 11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. How to Test WCAG 1.4.10: Reflow (Level AA) - Easy Website Accessibility Test You Can Do (Video) By Equalize Digital. "This video demonstrates how to test Web Content Accessibility Guidelines success criterion 1.4.10: Reflow (Level AA) and shows a failure due to sticky components covering the content, making it unreadable…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFHTFgf-bzw Testing Methods: No Keyboard Trap By Dennis Deacon. "WCAG 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap is a Level A conformance level Success Criterion. It ensure that users navigating with a keyboard are never trapped within a subsection of a page…" https://www.dennisdeacon.com/web/accessibility/testing-methods-no-keyboard-trap/ Testing Mobile Apps for Accessibility with Gian Wild, Ricky Onsman, Rafal Charlampowicz, Paul van Workum, and Genevieve Lake. By OZeWAI. "Experts discuss how to make every mobile app inclusive. Discover the tools and methods behind inclusive app design.…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9UUtTjb19k Mastering Alt Text - Enhancing Web Accessibility for Visually Impaired Users By Alan Sleat. "Here's some guidance from Alan Sleat, one of our Accessibility Assessors who uses a screen reader, on how to improve your website, posts, documents and presentations with alt text.…" https://www.accessibility-services.co.uk/2025/10/21/mastering-alt-text-enhancing-web-accessibility-for-visually-impaired-users/ Alt Text or Image Description? By Lauren Sherrard. "Hi and thanks for tuning in. I'm Colleen Gratzer and in this episode of Design Domination, I'm answering the question, Do logos need to be accessible? Do logo designs need to meet accessibility requirements? Stick around, because the answer will surprise you!…" https://www.laurensherrard.com/blog/alt-text-or-image-description Got Data, Now What? Storytelling Through Accessible Design By Equal Entry. "Based on Dr. Angela Young's A11yNYC talk, this explores how inclusive design transforms raw data into stories everyone can understand and act on…" https://equalentry.com/got-data-now-what-storytelling-through-accessible-design/ Accessibility Isn't Just for Screen Readers, Dad Water Steve and Gary (Video) By Equalize Digital. "In this episode, we talk about the misconception that accessibility primarily focuses on helping blind users, and share a wide variety of things website owners can do that may not necessarily benefit blind users, but that nonetheless greatly enhance overall accessibility" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1FuppExYCQ Do Logos Need to Be Accessible? By Creative Boost. "Do logos need to be accessible and meet the WCAG accessibility requirements? The answer will surprise you! Find out how to make your logo designs more accessible and reach a wider audience and how that helps your branding work…" https://creative-boost.com/do-logos-need-to-be-accessible/ The Microsoft 365 Features for Creating Accessible Content By Josh Crawford. "This article explores the built-in accessibility features in Microsoft 365 that enable content creators to produce accessible workplace communications. It covers practical tools including the Accessibility Checker, alt text for images, proper document structure, PowerPoint subtitles and layouts, and Teams features such as live captions and meeting transcripts, demonstrating how these features help ensure content reaches all colleagues…" https://www.digitalaccesstraining.com/pages/articles?p=the-microsoft-365-features-for-creating-accessible-content How to Write an Accessibility Statement in 2025, with Examples By Chris Hinds. "Need to write an accessibility statement? But, you're not sure where to start, and you need examples? You're in the right place…" https://equalizedigital.com/how-to-write-an-accessibility-statement-in-2025-with-examples/ W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 Approved as ISO/IEC International Standard By Shawn Lawton Henry. "W3C standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) - International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Joint Technical Committee (JTC 1) - Information technology as ISO/IEC 40500:2025…" https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2025/wcag22-iso-pas/ Eyeing Accessibility Deadline, States Root Out Ancient Web Issues By Colin Wood. "One state official said his goal isn't only to remove inaccessible content, but retrain staff so that old design mistakes don't need to be revisited…" https://statescoop.com/government-web-accessibility-deadline/ Why Accessibility Breaks Between Design and Development By Alicia Jarvis. "Accessibility often starts strong in design - with thoughtful colour contrast, readable typography, and inclusive interaction flows…" https://www.alicia.design/post/why-accessibility-breaks-between-design-development OpenAI, ARIA, and SEO: Making the Web Worse By Adrian Roselli. In this articles Adrian delivers a compelling critique of OpenAI's new Atlas browser for encouraging misuse of ARIA tags, intended for accessibility, to help its ChatGPT agent better parse websites, which will worsen web accessibility and fuel SEO abuse. He highlights OpenAI's poor understanding of accessibility standards and warns that this approach could lead to further degradation of web quality and user experience. https://adrianroselli.com/2025/10/openai-aria-and-seo-making-the-web-worse.html Atlas Ableism By Steve Faulkner. "…I will state with confidence that from what I have experienced with ChatGPT Atlas browser It does not conform to: * Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act * EN 301 549 (PDF) * WCAG 2.2 * European accessibility act It's an inaccessible piece of software built on the sweat of other's work much like OpenAI's other business offerings…" https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2025/10/23/atlas-ableism/ Can Generative AI Create Accessible Websites? By Ruchi Panchanadikar, Mitali Shrikant Bhosekar, and Emma Dixon. "…The inconsistencies observed in inaccurate element generation, lack of contextual awareness, and failure to meet clearly stated requirements suggest that these tools are not yet reliable enough for full automation in accessibility workflows. Consequently, human oversight remains indispensable for AI-supported accessibility practices and full WCAG compliance…" https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3663547.3759755 Yes, Let's Teach LLMs Accessibility, but Also the Companies Using Them By Hidde de Vries. "A prominent vendor of accessibility tooling made the case for teaching AI agents about accessibility, because developers use them and therefore this teaching is a way to shift left.…" https://hidde.blog/teaching-llms-or-companies/ Understanding Compliance and Conformance in the EAA Era By Matthew Luken. "The global digital accessibility landscape is complex. Directives, transpositions, regulations, standards-what are they, how do they differ, and how do they fit into the bigger picture?…" https://www.deque.com/blog/understanding-compliance-and-conformance-in-the-eaa-era/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. The New Progress() Function in CSS By Amit Merchant. "…With the new CSS progress() function, you can express 'how far' the viewport width has moved between a minimum and maximum size, and map that directly to opacity…" https://www.amitmerchant.com/the-progress-function-css/ CSS Layout: Flexbox, Grid, Media Queries and Container Queries By Axel Rauschmayer. "CSS provides a variety of services for web content: In the previous chapter, we used it to format content: to change colors, typefaces, etc. In this chapter, we will use it to lay out content: to place HTML elements on a page…" https://www.2ality.com/2025/10/css-layout +03: DRUPAL. A New Era of Digital Accessibility: The EAA and its Implications for Drupal By Mike Gifford. "The digital world is becoming increasingly regulated, and for good reason. New legislation like the European Accessibility Act (EAA) is setting a clear standard for digital inclusion, ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability, has equal access to digital products and services. For the Drupal community, this isn't a challenge, but an opportunity to showcase what we do best - building an open, accessible web for all…" https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-new-era-of-digital-accessibility-the-eaa-and-its-implications-for-drupal State of Drupal Presentation (October 2025) By Dries Buytaert. "In my DrupalCon Vienna keynote, I talk about how Drupal is adapting to an AI-driven web through AI-enabled visual editing, site templates, autonomous agents, and workflow orchestration." https://dri.es/state-of-drupal-presentation-october-2025 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. New Telco UX Research: 3 High-Level Takeaways from 3,500 Hours of Testing By Kathryn Reeves. "Despite being a multibillion-dollar industry, telco struggles with basic UX…" https://baymard.com/blog/telco-ux-research +05: EVENTS. A11yTO Conference 2025 and Networking/Socializing October 30, 2025. Tokyo, Japan https://www.meetup.com/a11ytokyo/events/311557255/ Common Mistakes: Easily Missed or Misunderstood Accessible Design Requirements November 6, 2025. Online https://accessibilityonline.org/ao/session/?id=111190 The Born-Accessible Design Approach: Cost-Effective, Inclusive, Compliant November 25, 2025. Online https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/session?id=111186 OzCHI 2025 November 29-December 3, 2025. Sydney, Australia https://www.ozchi.org/2025/ International Day of People with Disability December 3, 2025. Global https://www.idpwd.com.au/ World Braille Day January 4, 2026. Global https://www.un.org/en/observances/braille-day +06: HTML. What's an Interactive Element? By Manuel Matuzović. "Two years ago, I wrote an article about the dialog element. I tested where focus goes when you open a modal dialog via the showModal() method. I tried different combinations of elements and attributes to see what happens because back in 2023, the behaviour was very inconsistent. In one of my tests, I put the tabindex attribute on the dialog element…" https://www.matuzo.at/blog/2025/whats-an-interactive-element Updated Organizational Chart Examples Using HTML and CSS By John F Croston III. "Back in 2016 I was looking for the best way to code an organizational chart that was accessible and thought it was time to publish an update blog post with an additional examples and some updates. My organizational chart example page now has three examples instead of the two examples from before…" http://www.jfciii.com/blog/2025/10/20/updated-organizational-chart-examples-using-html-and-css/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. An Introduction to JavaScript Expressions By Mat Marquis. "Hey, I'm Mat, but 'Wilto' works too - I'm here to teach you JavaScript…" https://css-tricks.com/an-introduction-to-javascript-expressions/ JavaScript For Everyone: Iterators By Mat Marquis. "Here is a lesson on Iterators: iterables implement the iterable iteration interface, and iterators implement the iterator iteration interface. Sounds confusing? Mat breaks it all down in the artic…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2025/10/javascript-for-everyone-iterators/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Access Board Shutdown By U.S. Access Board. "Due to the lack of appropriations, all Access Board services are suspended…" https://www.access-board.gov/about/policy/shutdown.html +09: TOOLS. Image Description Toolkit 3.0 Available By Kelly Ford. "I have a vastly updated version of my Image Description Toolkit (IDT) available…" https://theideaplace.net/image-description-toolkit-3-0-available/ A WCAG Journey - a Small Portion By Morgan Murrah. "An interactive website using WCAG JSON as content…" https://airbr.github.io/WCAG-JSON-experience/ +10: USABILITY. Overflow Menu Icons (Video) By Kate Kaplan. "Overflow menu icons are widely recognized, but hiding key actions inside them can hurt usability. Use them for secondary actions, and always prioritize clarity and proximity…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo_miuSgQv8 Designing for Millions of Users (feat. Jay Dutta, Global Head of UX, Deutsche Bank) (Video) By Nielsen Norman Group. "In this episode, Jay Dutta-Global Head of UX at Deutsche Bank-shares how designing at scale isn't just about reaching millions, but about preserving depth: of empathy, culture, and context…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6qYeOh5ikw +11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. The Present and Potential Future of Progressive Image Rendering by Jake Archibald. "Progressive image formats allow the decoder to create a partial rendering when only part of the image resource is available…" https://jakearchibald.com/2025/present-and-future-of-progressive-image-rendering/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +12: 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:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]