Digital Accessibility Blogs and Newsletters

1 Comment / / developing the web, works for me

Let me start this post by making clear this is a personal list. It’s part of my job at TPGi to keep up with what’s happening in the digital accessibility industry and I’ve built up a list of sources that help me do that.

We felt it would be useful to share this list, but I don’t claim that it’s comprehensive. Having said that, my list is long and can look daunting. I wouldn’t expect anyone to follow all of these sources all of the time.

To make it easier to read, I’ve divided this post into the following sections.

Digital accessibility newsletters

  • Title: Web Design Update
    Compiler: Laura L. Carlson, University of Minnesota Duluth
    Format: Weekly email newsletter of aggregated links
    Notes: Content is organized into eight regular sections with headings such as Accessibility, CSS, Evaluation & Testing, HTML, etc. These are supplemented by occasional sections when the content warrants it, such as Books, Navigation, Tools, and Webwaste & Sustainability.

    Content in each section is selected for its relevance to digital accessibility. Each item includes a title, author or source, brief description or quote, and a link. While content can be commercial or non-commercial, promotional fluff generally doesn’t get in. It’s all killer, no filler. For anyone who writes about digital accessibility, being among the first listed in Laura’s Accessibility section is like topping the music charts. If you can have, or want, only one digital accessibility email newsletter, this is it.

  • Title: Accessibility in the News
    Compiler: Jack McElaney, MicroAssist
    Format: Weekly email newsletter of aggregated links
    Notes: This is a very comprehensive aggregation of links relating to all kinds of accessibility for people with disabilities, organized into sections including news items, blog posts, academic articles, training, conferences, employment, and (a lot) more.

    Both the US National News and International sections regularly have 20 or more items, each with a title, date, linked source and paragraph description. The other sections can each have anything from 10 to 60 items, typically just a linked title. There is probably too much information for anyone to fully digest, but Jack has made it very easy to scan and select highlights that may interest any one reader.

  • Title: Accessibility Weekly
    Compiler: David A. Kennedy, Ad Hoc (formerly WordPress guru at Automattic)
    Format: Weekly email newsletter of aggregated links
    Notes: Content is organized into a Featured item and a Sponsored item (each with a title, brief description, and link), then about a dozen items listed under News, Resources, Tools and Tutorials (each with a linked title and source), and a closing New to A11y item (something that caught David’s attention: could be an older item, a piece of industry news, or a quirky take on a topic). David will often pick up an item or two not featured in other link aggregators.

Those are my three go-to email newsletters, but there are quite a few others that focus on digital accessibility: some that aggregate articles and blog posts, some published by individuals as a way of keeping up with their activities and thoughts, and some by organizations as a way of keeping their products and services front-of-mind while sharing industry news.

Many of those newsletters also come up in the sections below, but if you want a handy list, you’ll find one at WebAxe’s Digital Accessibility Newsletters and another at DigitalA11Y’s Digital Accessibility Newsletters Roundup.

Individuals who write about digital accessibility

These are people who publish articles, blog posts and news items about digital accessibility on their personal websites. They may be freelance service providers, consultants, organization employees, or industry commentators. Some of them are visual or UX designers, some of them are front end or full stack developers, some may focus on certain types of disability, and some may focus on certain accessibility topics.

Some of them get very technical, others focus on big picture topics. A few of them might not have written for a while but have archives that are goldmines. All of them are interesting, relevant, engaging and often compelling.

Details provided here include their website URL, their RSS feed (if they have one), and either a Mastodon or X (Twitter) social media contact. If they publish an email newsletter, that’s noted in parentheses after their name.

Name Website RSS feed Social media
Adrian Roselli website RSS Mastodon
Ahmad Shadeed website RSS Mastodon
Amber Wilson website RSS Mastodon
Alastair Campbell website RSS Mastodon
Ashlee M Boyer website RSS X
Ben Myers website RSS Mastodon
Bogdan Cerovac website RSS X
Bruce Lawson (newsletter) website RSS Mastodon
Carie Fisher website RSS X
Craig Abbott website RSS Mastodon
Dennis Lembree website Mastodon
Eric Bailey website RSS Mastodon
Eric Eggert website RSS Mastodon
Erik Kroes website RSS Mastodon
Grace Snow website RSS
Heather Buchel website RSS Mastodon
Heydon Pickering website RSS Mastodon
Hidde de Vries website RSS Mastodon
Ian Lloyd website Mastodon
Joe Dolson website RSS Mastodon
Karl Groves website RSS Mastodon
Kitty Giraudel website RSS X
Léonie Watson website RSS Mastodon
Manuel Matuzović website Mastodon
Marcus Herrmann website RSS Mastodon
Martin Mengele website RSS Mastodon
Melanie Richards website RSS Mastodon
Melanie Sumner website Mastodon
Meryl Evans (newsletter) website RSS Mastodon
Paul J. Adam website Mastodon
Rian Rietveld website Mastodon
Russ Weakley website RSS X
Sara Soueidan (newsletter) website RSS Mastodon
Sarah Higley website Mastodon
Sarah L. Fossheim website RSS Mastodon
Scott O’Hara website RSS Mastodon
Sheri Byrne-Haber website RSS X
Stéphanie Walter (newsletter) website RSS X
Steve Faulkner website RSS Mastodon
Todd Libby website RSS Mastodon

There are other great writers about digital accessibility whose work I generally find out about in other ways, such as in those email newsletters.

Some of these individuals, and others, can be found as part of a11y-webring.club, a webring for digital accessibility practitioners.

Digital accessibility service provider blogs

This is not an exhaustive list of providers of accessibility services – just some organizations that produce blog posts, articles and news items related to digital accessibility, especially those with a technical focus. The link provided is to their blog page.

Many of them also produce email newsletters you can sign up to. The location in parentheses after the company name should not be taken to mean they operate only in that jurisdiction – in fact, many of them operate on a global scale, with team members based around the world. Many of them have also formed partnerships with each other to create a global network of service provision. Others have a more local focus.

For more digital accessibility services providers, many of which also have blogs, see the 229 vendors listed at the Accessibility.com Vendor Directory.

Digital accessibility product vendor blogs

There are a lot more I could add to this list, but these are my must-haves.

Digital and web technology publishers, including on accessibility

The organizations listed here are publishers of articles with a broad focus of web and digital technology. The links provided are to their topic, category or search sections that focus on accessibility. That doesn’t mean these are the only places to find articles on these sites that relate to digital accessibility but they’re a good place to start.

Other blogs & newsletters

This is a bit of a grab-bag of other individuals and organizations I keep an eye on who either provide useful information or make me think differently about digital accessibility.

Conclusion

After all that, I should explain how I manage all this.

First, my purpose is to keep track of developments that might affect the TPGi KnowledgeBase – the rules, test procedures and solutions our engineers and customers use when conducting audits and recommending remediation techniques. That means I don’t have to read everything closely, just scan for useful and relevant information. I can ignore a lot of stuff because it’s repetitive (you wouldn’t believe how many “WACG 2.2 is here!” announcements I’ve seen) or because it’s not relevant to my task.

Second, the vast majority of these sources update only occasionally. There are a very few that write daily (and they do tend to be among the most useful) but most of the individuals and organizations write weekly or monthly at best, and some of them don’t write anything for months at a time.

Third, 90% of what I know I should look at is in the those three weekly email newsletters. Laura Carlson and Jack McElaney, especially, have my undying gratitude and sincere admiration for the way they compile all the most important stuff in such a short timeframe.

Fourth, I’m in the fortunate position of working remotely from my home in Australia, which means I’m hours ahead of my colleagues in Asia, Europe, and the USA. I give myself a few hours on a Monday morning to go through the email newsletters, and then I use a feedreader to scan for anything I haven’t yet picked up. It’s a great way to start my working week.

In closing, let me try to pre-empt an important question you might have: “Why haven’t you included my favorite?” Well, it could be because:

  1. I didn’t know about it. I check my sources regularly, but it’s entirely possible I just missed someone.
  2. There was no blog or newsletter. Some people and organizations simply don’t produce news articles or blog posts.
  3. There was a blog or newsletter, but it was essentially an exercise in self-promotion, not information I need to know about digital accessibility.
  4. There was a blog or newsletter, but it hasn’t been updated in too many years.
  5. Lastly, inclusion on these lists implies some level of endorsement, and I personally don’t feel comfortable endorsing, for example, vendors of one-click overlay “solutions”, even if they produce good blogs or newsletters. Just my opinion.

If, after considering this, you feel strongly that there’s someone else I should be paying attention to, leave a comment with your suggestion and I’ll check them out.

Originally published: https://www.tpgi.com/digital-accessibility-blogs-and-newsletters/.

1 thought on “Digital Accessibility Blogs and Newsletters”

  1. Darek

    Hi, this is the great list, extremely useful!
    Feel free to add us to the list. We are still quite young company, located in Krakow, Poland – but fully devoted to make world more accessible 🙂 (Accens is an accessibility services provider with a blog and a newsletter.)

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