Password Inputs and Accessible Semantics
Nicolas Steenhout's tutorial on <input type="password"> covers several aspects of making password fields accessible. Users should be able to toggle the field to type="text" to view what they've entered, and any change in state should be announced politely. Password hints that describe requirements for choosing a password should be placed before the input field and programmatically associated with it.
Naming, Ordering, and Modern CSS
Maggie Wachs's article on practical accessibility emphasizes the importance of naming elements to ensure users can confidently move around a page. Stephanie Eckles's piece explores modern CSS properties such as :focus-visible, outline-offset, and order, noting that these can both help and hinder accessibility depending on usage. Clever applications of min() and max() can, for instance, reduce excessive margin when the page is zoomed and preserve tappable area sizes.
The State of Web Accessibility
Jared Smith's WebAIM Million update for 2021 reports that accessibility is improving, if only slightly. While the overall state of things is far from "good," the trend is encouraging — possibly a first for the annual study.
Shifting Accessibility Testing Left
Jonathan Thickens introduces Deque's axe-linter for VS Code, an editor plugin that surfaces accessibility errors as if they were syntax or formatting mistakes. The "shift left" philosophy means testing earlier in the process; catching issues "as you code" is about as early as it gets.
Content-visibility and Skeleton Screens
Marcy Sutton documents that the accessibility problems initially associated with content-visibility have been resolved. Her post outlines what those issues were. Adrian Roselli, writing about skeleton screens, argues that setting aria-busy="true" on a bit of skeleton HTML isn't sufficient; a bit more attribute-shuffling is generally required, combined with CSS selectors to hide elements that should not be announced.
Additional Resources
Sheri Byrne-Haber's "Giving a damn about accessibility" is a freely available digital and audio book aimed at designers, offering a candid and practical handbook on the subject.
