Sara Soueidan
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sarasoueidan.com
Sara Soueidan
@sarasoueidan.com
15K followers 180 following 1.3K posts
🇱🇧 Independent UI engineer, speaker, author, and educator / Accessibility advocate / Minimalist

• My accessibility course: https://practical-accessibility.today
• Blog https://sarasoueidan.com
• Newsletter: https://www.sarasoueidan.com/newsletter
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sarasoueidan.com
Good morning! ⛅️

Here's my bulbul who started to feel so comfortable outside that he even bathed on the balcony and is drying himself off outside.

He's home now. I think there might come a day when he'll eventually choose not to come back. So I'm grateful for these moments & wanted to share them.
November 16, 2025 at 6:22 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Still wet but colors look better here
November 10, 2025 at 12:02 PM
sarasoueidan.com
He has learned to look for water in the bathroom when be wants to bathe.

He went in to the sink and found none. So I got his "bathing plate" and placed it on the floor.

He's now sitting on my right hand—half wet and utterly adorable—as I type this on my phone.

Happy Sunday 🥰
November 9, 2025 at 11:38 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Those of you who've followed me long enough may know that I don't keep my birds in cages. And at some point I start to let them out. They may choose not to come back, but that's a risk I am willing to take if they're ready to live "on their own".

This one came back today.
November 2, 2025 at 12:06 PM
sarasoueidan.com
Today, I let my bulbul out and about. He explored the area around the house where there are also many other wild bulbuls.
November 2, 2025 at 12:06 PM
sarasoueidan.com
The alternative, if you don't want to keep the same images in both light and dark mode, can be to use feature queries in the element and render the image suitable for each mode. codepen.io/SaraSoueidan...

A video demonstrating the img in the Codepen change when I switch modes on macOS:
October 29, 2025 at 2:32 PM
sarasoueidan.com
This shot is the moment I realized he did the number two on my shoulder. 💩
My bird sits all relaxed and looking all fluffy on my shoulder. He looks very innocent. I'm looking sideways with an "oh-oh you did it again" kind of expression on my face knowing he had just pooped on my shoulder.
October 22, 2025 at 8:11 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Good morning!

Today's standup: I tried to get my bird in the introduction for one of the course chapters. I couldn't keep serious enough to do it. I tried but failed miserably. 😂 He was hungry and he tends to peck on my mouth when he is hungry to let me know he wants some of *my* food (no joke).
October 22, 2025 at 8:11 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Good morning from my bird and I. 🐥

I didn't know how to "break the news" 😅 but I'm a bird mom again. And this little guy is all grown up and not a baby. He's already supervising and reviewing all course-related work. You may even get to hear him in the background of new chapter recordings! 🥰
October 15, 2025 at 5:26 AM
sarasoueidan.com
I also found this whimsical one and couldn't resist purchasing it. 😅
October 8, 2025 at 6:05 PM
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October 8, 2025 at 6:03 PM
sarasoueidan.com
OK, this is starting to feel like spite, @bsky.app
Bluesky login page with my credentials filled in, awaiting the 2FA confirmation code sent via email.
October 2, 2025 at 11:02 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Proud to share a new piece of feedback I got from a recent Practical Accessibility course graduate. I got permission from Elle to share her message. ♥️

It's a long one, but these messages are also my favorite. I have more to share soon. 🫶🏻
Thank you so much for this course with all of its incredibly valuable content! I cannot imagine the amount of work you’ve put into this, it still blows my mind. Your course is a lot to take in but let’s face it: it’s SO necessary to get a broad yet deep understanding of how to be inclusive, being a designer, a PL/PO, or an engineer! All those hands-on examples have been crucial to fully understand what’s been discussed. And the sources? In times of searches becoming a huge part of the enshittification of the web? Worth a thousand bucks. I’m gonna need a couple of week to work myself through them though :D So even if it’s a lot, Practical Accessibility is the absolute BEST out there to have “all you need to know” in one place. More people should do the course and I will definitely recommend it at work. Practical Accessibility definitely already helped me in understanding why certain components and modules at work are build the way they are build. Taking a step back in looking at semantic HTML first even more than before, was a real wake up call. As was “the lesser ARIA the better”. Amazing work, all around. This course will be my main source of truth for a long time to come! I’m certain that this will get me on a good path in becoming a more inclusive Frontend Developer. We are working for the German government so we’re already on a good path re: Accessibility. As always: there’s room for improvement :) Thanks again for all the amazing work you’ve put into Practical Accessibility!
September 28, 2025 at 4:12 PM
sarasoueidan.com
Tuning in to #id24 for @lolaodelola.bsky.social ’s talk: The Gaps We Inherit

#a11y
Screenshot of the Youtube user interface with the video section showing the speaker name and talk title coming up in the live stream in less than 3 minutes.
September 25, 2025 at 2:58 PM
sarasoueidan.com
FYI: browsers will typically expose interactive elements even when they are hidden with aria-hidden because this is an anti-pattern.

From the spec:

www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-...
www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-...
user agents MUST provide an accessible object in the accessibility tree for DOM elements that meet any of the following criteria: Elements that are not hidden and may fire an accessibility API event, including: Elements that are currently focused, even if the element or one of its ancestor elements has its aria-hidden attribute set to true. Authors using aria-hidden to hide visible content from screen readers MUST ensure that identical or equivalent meaning and functionality is exposed to assistive technologies. NOTE Authors are advised to use extreme caution and consider a wide range of disabilities when hiding visibly rendered content from assistive technologies. For example, a sighted, dexterity-impaired individual may use voice-controlled assistive technologies to access a visual interface. If an author hides visible link text "Go to checkout" and exposes similar, yet non-identical link text "Check out now" to the accessibility API, the user may be unable to access the interface they perceive using voice control. Similar problems may also arise for screen reader users. For example, a sighted telephone support technician may attempt to have the blind screen reader user click the "Go to checkout" link, which they may be unable to find using a type-ahead item search ("Go to…").
September 10, 2025 at 4:48 PM
sarasoueidan.com
"[The Practical Accessibility course] completely changed the way I think about the web. I started the course expecting to learn about rules, compliance, and some code snippets. But, I ended up with a completely new mental model for how we design, who we design for, and what “quality” really means."
Screenshot of Yusuf's article with the first paragraph (quoted in the post) highlighted.
September 6, 2025 at 10:18 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Another day, another 'Practical Accessibility' course student requests a certificate of completion for the course and shares wonderful feedback about their experience with the course. 🫶🏻

Marek is a Senior Product Designer at HolidayCheck.

🔗 Get the course: practical-accessibility.today

#a11y
I also wanted to take this opportunity to say that this was one of the best (if not the best) trainings I did. With your presentations, and additional sources listed by you it is very comprehensive. It really allowed me to get very deep into the topic of a11y in those few months, and understand it on level I always wished for. Marek Szmyt Senior Product Designer at HolidayCheck
August 23, 2025 at 7:38 AM
sarasoueidan.com
I hear you!
Someone on twitter wrote: "Maybe when falling behind schedule use genAi to help keep the standard of the quality of the course material at the same high standards, But obviously you make quality material" To which I responded: "I don't use AI in any of the work I produce. 🤗 I don't need its assistance. As long as my brain is still creative and I'm still doing the work I always have, then I'm good. Luckily, I also make my own schedule and it's pretty flexible. Creativity takes time and it's worth taking the time for. I can't imagine allowing AI to take over that just for the sake of 'productivity'."
July 15, 2025 at 3:07 PM
sarasoueidan.com
Nothing too crazy or intense today as I wasn't in the mood to work out. Not all days will be the same and this is a self-reminder that that's OK. The challenge was in getting _to_ workout, and I did it.
Apple Watch face showing the summary of this workout session: Functional strength training, Open Goal. Total time worked out: 33 minutes and 20 seconds. Active calories burnt less than 100. In the background, the workout video title is partially visible. The title of this session is "Full Body Core Collab; Dumbells required".
July 5, 2025 at 6:53 AM
sarasoueidan.com
Today's pre-workout smoothie:

- Milk
- Dates
- Vanilla protein powder
- MCT oil
- Creatine
- Mushrooms powder mix
- Iced coffee cubes
An exercise mat, a laptop just infant of the mat with an webpage open on a workout subscription website, and a pre-workout smoothie that contains: - Milk - Dates - Vanilla protein powder - MCT oil - Creatine - Mushrooms powder mix - Iced coffee cubes
July 5, 2025 at 6:20 AM
sarasoueidan.com
LOL apparently not!! I waited and waited and this is what I ended up getting.
A Discord app alert dialog. The title says that "A JavaScript error occurred in the main process" and is followed by a long string denoting an Uncaught Exception error.
June 29, 2025 at 4:15 PM
sarasoueidan.com
My day hasn't been particularly great today, but now I can't stop smiling. 🥹

I received such beautiful feedback to my course it has absolutely made my day.

Thank you, Roman. 🫶🏻
"I am currently following your video course “practical accessibility” and am absolutely excited! This is “the missing manual” to accessibility. You are answering all my questions on accessibility that no website or book was ever able to answer before. Your course is so incredibly well done, it’s worth every penny ten times and I absolutely recommend it to every frontend developer and to everyone interested in accessibility on the web. My colleagues by the way share the same impressions. Thank you!" —Roman Seidelsohn, Senior frontend developer at Springer Nature Digital in Berlin, Germany.
May 23, 2025 at 4:55 PM
sarasoueidan.com
🧵 Story time:

A group of men stood gazing at a mountain across from them.

Someone in the group asked the others: "What do you see?"
A photo of a mountain afar, taken at sunset. The sky is an orange gradient, and clouds look like they're beautiful strokes of paint in the sky.
May 22, 2025 at 6:00 PM
sarasoueidan.com
Today, Manuel published a followup saying that many responded and "the overwhelming majority suggested Practical Accessibility" 🫶🏻

Manuel enrolled in the course 🥳 and he encourages you to join too if you want to invest into getting better at accessibility:

manuelmoreale.com/web-accessib...
"And as we know life works in mysterious ways and in fact today (May 15th) is Global Accessibility Awareness Day—something I wasn’t aware of—and Sara has a promo running and if you use the code GAAD25 at checkout you’ll get a 25% discount on her course. A course that I bought this morning, and I plan to go through in the upcoming days. So if, like me, you also want to invest some of your time and money into getting better at accessibility, this is the perfect opportunity. Again, the course is Practical Accessibility and the promo code is GAAD25."
May 15, 2025 at 5:30 PM
sarasoueidan.com
Two days ago, Manuel Moreale (who's not on social media and for which I envy him) blogged asking for recommendations for "the best course to deepen [his] knowledge of web accessibility":

manuelmoreale.com/web-accessib...

#a11y
"That said, one specific area I want to get better at is accessibility. I never took courses or studied accessibility specifically; I only learned a bunch of stuff over time, but I feel like I need to get better at it. And this is where you can help. Like you, I have a finite amount of time at my disposal, and I want to use it wisely. Which is why I’m trying to figure out the best course I can go through to deepen my knowledge of web accessibility. Because I can’t afford to waste 30+ hours—and money—on a shitty course and I know for a fact that there’s a lot of garbage out there."
May 15, 2025 at 5:30 PM