There’s no going back
The more I learn about accessibility, the harder it is to look back at some of my old work; but that cringe is a useful measure of progress.
tempertemper
Articles on user experience design and frontend web development
Latest posts
WWDC 2026 roundup
The last few WWDC announcements from Apple have left me desperate for a ‘bug fixes and performance improvements’ release. Well, it’s finally here!
Clickable table rows are a bad idea
Whole table rows might feel like obvious candidates to be clickable areas, but making them interactive creates real accessibility problems.
Do it properly now
Shipping something inaccessible is rarely a shortcut; it’s usually a debt.
Do graphs and charts need to be accessible?
Charts and graphs are a good example of where making content accessible is not always the same as making an image itself accessible.
A bugbear about aria-label
Labels are labels and names are names, except aria-label which is a name…
There’s no need to include ‘navigation’ in your navigation labels
Marking up navigation is pretty straightforward, but here’s a nice reminder on how the aria-label should be written.
Figcaptions versus alt text
How does an image’s descriptive (alt) text differ from the caption it would have if it were used in a element?
Designing and building from our own worldview
Producing accessible software means continually questioning your own habits and assumptions about how people interact with it.
Holidays, no laptop, and a Bluetooth keyboard
In recent years I’ve tried to switch off more on holiday, so I leave my laptop at home. But I still get enjoy a bit of writing, so what to do?
The final nail in the HTML5 document outline coffin
All the main web browsers have finally dropped visual support for the HTML5 document outline algorithm. Here’s why that’s good news.
Should pagination take you to a new page?
‘Pagination’ has comes from the word ‘page’, so yes, pagination should consist of pages. But the question is totally valid; worth digging into!
An accessible pagination pattern (or two)
A couple of weeks ago I added pagination to my blog, and it was an interesting delve into the various designs and markup patterns that can be used.
The return of the heading group
I’ve written about why we probably shouldn’t use header elements for headings, but what should we use instead? The element is back!
A big thank you for an incredible leaving present
On finishing at Sage, my amazing colleagues gave me a gift that made something I’d long wanted but never quite entertained a reality. The perfect send-off.
Headers, headings, and titles
What we call things is important, often as it helps us communicate clearly with our team; there are three terms I regularly hear used interchangeably.
Page headings don’t belong in the header
I have a habit of thinking pretty deeply about semantics and structure, and have been considering the main page heading and where it should live.
A new MacBook for a new chapter
Returning to self-employment meant buying a new laptop; here’s how I weighed up the Air versus the Pro, size, power, price, ports, and colour!
Focus on the people that make things happen
Accessibility buy-in from senior leadership can be tough; real change comes from the people who design and build.
Making sense of accessibility and the law
Accessibility isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the law. Here’s how the law applies to digital products, in plain English.
Hierarchy in tables
Hierarchical tables can be a lot to understand, particularly for screen reader users. Here’s how to tackle hierarchy when it can’t be avoided.
Everything has its time
I’ve recently decided to move on from my position at Sage and it has got me thinking about how things have a natural arc.
Erring on the side of caution
At some point a third party will audit the accessibility of your product; being strict now makes that process smoother and far less stressful.
WWDC 2025 roundup
Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) opening keynote is one of the big highlights in my calendar. Here are the bits that stood out to me.
Colour alone can be used to convey meaning, and I don’t like it!
Despite WCAG’s guidance to avoid conveying information with colour alone, there’s a caveat that allows it, and I’m not a happy bunny!
Are you sure that table isn’t a list?
We often reach for a tables when a list would be much more user friendly, and avoid potential WCAG issues.
Focus priming
Most people won’t need to know what focus priming is but it’s a useful way to test a website’s accessibility.
How navigation should work for keyboard users
The web is a network of pages that are linked together, with those links often grouped in a navigation. Here’s how keyboard users traverse navigation.
How button groups should work for keyboard users
Menubars, menus, toolbars, and tablists are part of a larger family of ‘button groups’. Here’s how they should behave when using the keyboard.
There’s no such thing as ‘menubar navigation’
A problem markup and interaction pattern I encounter a lot is a result of people (understandably) following a misleading example from the W3C.
Skip links: what, why, and how
Ever noticed one of those “Skip to main content” links when you press the tab key? They’re important.
Ensure your project works in every browser and for every user
Going through my backlog of blog ideas, I spotted a quote that I thought was worth sharing.
Using iframes to embed arbitrary content is probably a bad idea
The iframe element is a way to embed one website inside of another. Useful for things like maps or videos, but not so much for other content.
Avatars and alt text
I really enjoyed Nicolas Steenhout’s recent article on Alt text for avatars or user photos. But there is a context where I would break his rule…
Upgrading from iPhone 13 mini to 16 Pro
I get a new phone every 3-ish years, give mine to my wife, and now she gives hers to our daughter. I got a 16 Pro this year! Here’s the skinny.
Apple, you’re doing the Dynamic Island wrong
I love the idea of Dynamic Island; making lemons into lemonade and all that. But, in my opinion, Apple have got the fundamentals mixed up.
Getting started with NVDA
Everyone who works in digital product development should be familiar with screen reader software. Here’s how to get started with NVDA on Windows.
An enhancement to accessible responsive tables
I’ve written about accessible responsive tables before but something has been bugging me. So here’s another step to make those tables even better.
User ‘wants’ versus accessibility
When getting to grips with accessibility, there’s often a tension between what users ask for and doing things in an accessible way.
WWDC 2024 roundup
I got al the features I wanted from this year’s WWDC, Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference; as ever, there were also a few surprises!
How to browse the web with the keyboard alone
Some people use the keyboard to get around their computer. Knowing how to do this is important for accessibility testing and to inform design.
All I want from WWDC 2024
There are two things I’m hoping Apple announce at this year’s WWDC, and one of them is a stand-alone Passwords app.
Accessibility overlays are not for disabled people
Those little accessibility widgets you see on some websites are absolutely not for who you think they are.
Images as the first thing in a button or link
If the text of an interactive element like a button or link is preceded with an accessible image, we’ve probably got an accessibility problem.
Alt text for CSS generated content
There’s an interesting feature in Safari 17.4 that allows content added with CSS to have ‘alt’ text. I’m not sure how I feel about this.
The accessibility conversations you want to be having
In most companies, accessibility conversations centre around WCAG compliance, but that’s just the start. Thinking beyond that is where you want to be!
Screen reader users and the tab key
People who use a screen reader on a laptop/desktop generally use the keyboard, but that doesn’t mean they use it like a keyboard-only user.
Not all screen reader users are blind
There’s a common misconception that everyone who uses screen reader software is blind; that’s mostly the case, but not always.
Accessibility by degrees
Retro-fitting accessibility is far from ideal but usually the only way digital products are able to reach all of their potential users.
Own your own content
Posting valuable content to social media or other platforms you have no control over can be risky; just look at the mess over on Twitter…