Craig Abbott
@craigabbott.co.uk
Principal Accessibility Specialist at TetraLogical. Former Head of Accessibility at DWP. Writer. Speaker. Coder. Wildlife Photographer. Cat botherer. ADHD. Autistic. He/They. https://www.craigabbott.co.uk
I’m talking about AI and accessibility at A11y North this month, in Leeds. If it’s something you’re interested in, it would be great to see you there!
www.linkedin.com/events/a11yn...
www.a11ynorth.com
#a11y #accessibility #ai
www.linkedin.com/events/a11yn...
www.a11ynorth.com
#a11y #accessibility #ai
A11y North
The homepage of the A11y North charity and meet-up group
www.a11ynorth.com
January 8, 2026 at 7:46 AM
I’m talking about AI and accessibility at A11y North this month, in Leeds. If it’s something you’re interested in, it would be great to see you there!
www.linkedin.com/events/a11yn...
www.a11ynorth.com
#a11y #accessibility #ai
www.linkedin.com/events/a11yn...
www.a11ynorth.com
#a11y #accessibility #ai
In my talks, I’ve been saying for a while now that as AI continues to dominate “innovation”, accessibility is going to pay the price!
In this awesome article by Tracy Stine, you can see first-hand how many people are affected!
vocal.media/01/the-acces...
#accessibility #ai #a11y
In this awesome article by Tracy Stine, you can see first-hand how many people are affected!
vocal.media/01/the-acces...
#accessibility #ai #a11y
The Accessibility Crisis of 2026: What No One Wants to Admit
Innovation is speeding up, but disabled people are the ones paying the price.
vocal.media
January 8, 2026 at 7:45 AM
In my talks, I’ve been saying for a while now that as AI continues to dominate “innovation”, accessibility is going to pay the price!
In this awesome article by Tracy Stine, you can see first-hand how many people are affected!
vocal.media/01/the-acces...
#accessibility #ai #a11y
In this awesome article by Tracy Stine, you can see first-hand how many people are affected!
vocal.media/01/the-acces...
#accessibility #ai #a11y
This looks interesting! Will check it out thanks!
January 7, 2026 at 5:44 PM
This looks interesting! Will check it out thanks!
I love this idea haha - like crowd sourcing posts… because ADHD 😆
January 7, 2026 at 5:41 PM
I love this idea haha - like crowd sourcing posts… because ADHD 😆
Thank you! I need to write more. Or, should I say, publish more. I have about 100 posts in draft but I can never get any of them over the line!
January 7, 2026 at 10:57 AM
Thank you! I need to write more. Or, should I say, publish more. I have about 100 posts in draft but I can never get any of them over the line!
Thanks for sharing @priyanca.bsky.social, it’s also helped me notice that the meta description for this deck is wildly incorrect! 😆
January 7, 2026 at 8:42 AM
Thanks for sharing @priyanca.bsky.social, it’s also helped me notice that the meta description for this deck is wildly incorrect! 😆
Overheard somebody in the gym this morning, saying they’re “full of miniature heroes and regret”. 😆
Happy new year!
Happy new year!
January 5, 2026 at 6:56 AM
Overheard somebody in the gym this morning, saying they’re “full of miniature heroes and regret”. 😆
Happy new year!
Happy new year!
Reposted by Craig Abbott
TalkBack does not offer an option to use computer vision & LLMs (“AI” for the scope of this thread) to describe images lacking alt text.
If you do it in Chrome, it overwrites all the good alt text with, well, crap.
Try it on this page:
srt.csb-cde.ca.gov/jaws/jaws-l
[1/4]
If you do it in Chrome, it overwrites all the good alt text with, well, crap.
Try it on this page:
srt.csb-cde.ca.gov/jaws/jaws-l
[1/4]
December 21, 2025 at 9:40 PM
TalkBack does not offer an option to use computer vision & LLMs (“AI” for the scope of this thread) to describe images lacking alt text.
If you do it in Chrome, it overwrites all the good alt text with, well, crap.
Try it on this page:
srt.csb-cde.ca.gov/jaws/jaws-l
[1/4]
If you do it in Chrome, it overwrites all the good alt text with, well, crap.
Try it on this page:
srt.csb-cde.ca.gov/jaws/jaws-l
[1/4]
Autistic burnout, at this time of year. Changes in routine. Increased social activity and masking. Expectations on how you’ll spend your time, your money and your energy. Sensory overload, different lights, textures, smells and sounds. It’s ok not to be ok, even when it’s “the season to be jolly”.
December 22, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Autistic burnout, at this time of year. Changes in routine. Increased social activity and masking. Expectations on how you’ll spend your time, your money and your energy. Sensory overload, different lights, textures, smells and sounds. It’s ok not to be ok, even when it’s “the season to be jolly”.
I really relate to this Holborn graffiti.
December 10, 2025 at 8:31 AM
I really relate to this Holborn graffiti.
Die hard is a Christmas tradition in our house 😆
December 8, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Die hard is a Christmas tradition in our house 😆
Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel.
a man is holding a lighter with the words come out to the coast get together have a few laughs above him
Alt: Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard. He’s inside of air conditioning ducting holding a lighter with the caption: come out to the coast. Get together. Have a few laughs.
media.tenor.com
December 8, 2025 at 6:44 AM
Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel.
Yep! They’ll usually diagnose anything which falls under “common mental health conditions”. Anxiety and Depression are the main two, but there are others, like OCD and addiction. When the case is severe, complex or uncommon, then they’ll refer to a psychiatrist.
December 6, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Yep! They’ll usually diagnose anything which falls under “common mental health conditions”. Anxiety and Depression are the main two, but there are others, like OCD and addiction. When the case is severe, complex or uncommon, then they’ll refer to a psychiatrist.
That’s not necessarily true. Sure, a psychiatrist will diagnose neurodivergent conditions like ADHD and Autism etc, but GP’s will readily diagnose and prescribe for mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, which the article seems to be more focused around.
December 6, 2025 at 3:21 PM
That’s not necessarily true. Sure, a psychiatrist will diagnose neurodivergent conditions like ADHD and Autism etc, but GP’s will readily diagnose and prescribe for mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, which the article seems to be more focused around.
If you flip the response around, if GP’s believe there’s a problem with over-diagnosis, do they also believe a lot of people are being mis-diagnosed? They’re the ones doing the diagnosing, so are they incompetent or do people fit the criteria?
December 6, 2025 at 10:15 AM
If you flip the response around, if GP’s believe there’s a problem with over-diagnosis, do they also believe a lot of people are being mis-diagnosed? They’re the ones doing the diagnosing, so are they incompetent or do people fit the criteria?
Got you. Then yeah, that makes total sense!
December 6, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Got you. Then yeah, that makes total sense!
I think this is what I was trying to understand when you said small websites. I was thinking about it from a traffic perspective, but if you mean moving parts and complexity, then GOV is obviously a very simple structure
December 6, 2025 at 9:39 AM
I think this is what I was trying to understand when you said small websites. I was thinking about it from a traffic perspective, but if you mean moving parts and complexity, then GOV is obviously a very simple structure
I also appreciate that GOVUK websites are boring as f… They don’t need to handle a lot of complex interactions. It’s perhaps not a great comparison. But it does show HTML will scale far beyond what a lot of people think it’s capable of.
December 6, 2025 at 9:27 AM
I also appreciate that GOVUK websites are boring as f… They don’t need to handle a lot of complex interactions. It’s perhaps not a great comparison. But it does show HTML will scale far beyond what a lot of people think it’s capable of.
You’re right, it does, they use a CMS called Whitehall Publisher for parts of it. So not all of it is static. But most of their digital services which handle applications for everything in Gov, are mostly just static HTML pages, either written by hand or compiled from Nunjucks templates.
December 6, 2025 at 9:21 AM
You’re right, it does, they use a CMS called Whitehall Publisher for parts of it. So not all of it is static. But most of their digital services which handle applications for everything in Gov, are mostly just static HTML pages, either written by hand or compiled from Nunjucks templates.
I think it depends what you mean by small. Websites like GOVUK and parts of the BBC handle millions of visits per day using good ol’ HTML. Inefficiencies, poor architectural decisions or committing to a framework which doesn’t scale is going to kill your website way faster than using stock HTML.
December 6, 2025 at 9:15 AM
I think it depends what you mean by small. Websites like GOVUK and parts of the BBC handle millions of visits per day using good ol’ HTML. Inefficiencies, poor architectural decisions or committing to a framework which doesn’t scale is going to kill your website way faster than using stock HTML.
Not necessarily a list as such, but there are a few good things dotted about the GOVUK Service Manual and the GDS blog from back in the day designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2017/03/24/d...
Doing the hard work to make things open
Paul Smith, a frontend developer at DWP, writes about why it's so important to make our work open and how we can all help make this happen.
designnotes.blog.gov.uk
December 6, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Not necessarily a list as such, but there are a few good things dotted about the GOVUK Service Manual and the GDS blog from back in the day designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2017/03/24/d...
For what it’s worth, I stand by the principle though. I’m tired of people discounting others on their own assumptions about what they can and cannot do, or should and shouldn’t do. I’ve met brilliant visually impaired designers. Tools and attitudes often hold them back far more than their eyesight.
December 6, 2025 at 8:37 AM
For what it’s worth, I stand by the principle though. I’m tired of people discounting others on their own assumptions about what they can and cannot do, or should and shouldn’t do. I’ve met brilliant visually impaired designers. Tools and attitudes often hold them back far more than their eyesight.
Just had my first experience of being blocked on LinkedIn. Turns out people don’t like being called ableist when you call them out for suggesting tools like Figma are not for people who use screen readers. Being autistic though, I’m still left feeling like I was somehow in the wrong. 🙃
December 6, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Just had my first experience of being blocked on LinkedIn. Turns out people don’t like being called ableist when you call them out for suggesting tools like Figma are not for people who use screen readers. Being autistic though, I’m still left feeling like I was somehow in the wrong. 🙃
I think the expectation is that it should write code that works, but it often doesn’t. 😅
I’d expect a drop off once the context window is exceeded, but it doesn’t tell the user when that is. It just fails silently and sends them in circles suggesting fixes it previously tried that didn’t work.
I’d expect a drop off once the context window is exceeded, but it doesn’t tell the user when that is. It just fails silently and sends them in circles suggesting fixes it previously tried that didn’t work.
December 3, 2025 at 4:09 PM
I think the expectation is that it should write code that works, but it often doesn’t. 😅
I’d expect a drop off once the context window is exceeded, but it doesn’t tell the user when that is. It just fails silently and sends them in circles suggesting fixes it previously tried that didn’t work.
I’d expect a drop off once the context window is exceeded, but it doesn’t tell the user when that is. It just fails silently and sends them in circles suggesting fixes it previously tried that didn’t work.