The January Accessibility Reading List
Accessibility content tends to pile up quickly — there is always something new to learn or revisit. These eight links stood out recently, covering everything from common misconceptions to practical form-building guidance and a few genuinely fun resources.
Myth-Busting Accessibility
Two resources take aim at widespread misconceptions. Alvaro Montoro's article on myths about web accessibility runs through the classics, including the idea that accessibility only matters for people with disabilities — a framing that overlooks how broadly accessible design benefits everyone.
For a dedicated collection, Sergei Kriger built Accessibility Myths, a site entirely devoted to debunking false assumptions. One highlight is the myth that adding ARIA attributes alone achieves accessibility — which contradicts the first rule of ARIA: don't use it unless you have to.
Forms, Focus, and a Game
Forms are where accessibility goes wrong most often, even if the topic isn't strictly an accessibility subject. Google's new guide on form fields in depth integrates accessibility throughout, with a dedicated section on the subject as well.
For a more interactive approach, the Accessibility Maze from Ryerson University's Digital Education Strategies team makes keyboard-only navigation the core gameplay mechanic. It's fun precisely because you have to play it the way many users do.
On the standards front, an HTML focusgroup attribute proposal from Microsoft Edge explores a way to tap into the arrow-key navigation behavior that radio button groups and native select elements already have. If it lands, it could make that behavior available to any group of elements with a simple HTML attribute.
Designing for Dyslexia and Measuring Impact
A guide to adding a dyslexia-friendly mode goes beyond swapping in the Dyslexie font. Typographic spacing and reduced clutter play a significant role, as shown in the accompanying demo, which makes rare use of word-spacing. Not everyone agrees with the approach — Gareth Ford Williams offers some pushback worth reading.
Hidde de Vries tackles the uncomfortable question of how many people with disabilities actually visit a site. His answer: probably not many, but that doesn't diminish the importance of accessibility. For those needing a business case, he cites a report estimating 15–20% of the world's population lives with a disability.
Learning by Doing It Wrong
Manuel Matuzovic's video, Building The Most Inaccessible Site Possible, demonstrates that perfect Lighthouse scores across the board don't guarantee a usable site. Watching him deliberately create problems is an effective way to learn what to avoid — a kind of reverse engineering that sticks.
