Plain language is not about oversimplifying the content. It’s about language that enables people to find what they need, understand it the first time they read or hear it, and use that information successfully. Plain language focuses on...
Your website serves people with a wide range of reading needs and abilities. Some visitors have dyslexia. Others have low vision and rely on magnification or screen readers. Many are reading in a language that isn't their first. And still others...
After a long day of reading reports, meeting with stakeholders, and returning numerous emails and phone calls, you come home, grab your tablet, and go to your favorite sushi restaurant's website to order dinner. <sigh> You scroll down the...
From navigation menus to action buttons, icons can make interfaces feel clean, modern, and compact. But while icons may look sleek and elegant, they don't always clearly communicate meaning, especially when accessibility is a priority. In this...
A tooltip is one of those concepts that's often misunderstood. Many people think of a tooltip as a single UI element, but it's actually made up of two working parts. The trigger element and the tooltip. That fact was not always evident in some of...
This is part two of a four-part series on web governance. A strategy fueled by people, process, and technology. See part one titled Web Governance: Building Structure for a Sustainable User Experience. See part three...
When I’m looking for inspiration, a new topic, an idea that sparks my interest, or even a quote or headline that serves as a springboard to a blog post, I often tag one of the numerous newsletters in my inbox. Or sometimes, like in this...
At the recent Virginia Higher Education Accessibility Partners (VHEAP) conference in May, our sales executive, Luke Bachelor, had an interesting conversation with one of the attendees. They described a challenge that many...
DubBot is excited to return as a platinum sponsor of Digital Collegium’s Accessibility Summit on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. This one-day, multi-track virtual event brings together higher education professionals focused on advancing digital...
While researching another project, I noticed a recurring accessibility theme across several sources, often centered on the same ideas, such as budget and resources, accessibility as a business function, internal accountability is essential, and...
For colleges and universities, every technology purchasing decision is an opportunity to create a more accessible and user-centered digital experience for students, faculty, and staff while setting the standard for inclusion before anyone ever...
Last week, I was involved in an automobile accident. (No injuries with either driver.) My little Kia Soul sustained some pretty extensive damage. I’ll admit, it was pretty scary. It definitely shook me up. When I finally got home and...
I’m a long-time subscriber to Smashing Magazine’s email newsletter and have found articles and webinars that have inspired numerous blog posts over the years. One recent newsletter highlighted an article by David Mello,...
Higher education and private agency web teams may use some of the same digital tools, but the operational workflows they rely on are fundamentally different. Agencies are often built for speed with fast-moving client timelines, campaigns, and...
I love autocomplete! It’s one of those tiny internet features that makes my online life so much easier. Especially when I’m logging into a website or app I haven’t visited in months, and my brain has fully deleted...
Ableist language isn’t always obvious. It can hide in tone, assumptions, euphemisms, backhanded compliments, pity, or even the microcopy on a simple button label that seemed harmless at first. Case in point. While building a...
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) began in 2012 with a simple but powerful idea: get people talking, thinking, and learning about digital accessibility. What started with a blog post and a grassroots collaboration between Joe Devon...
In my blog post, What's So Great About HTML?, I included a link to Mark Steadman's LinkedIn profile. That link was flagged as an HTTP 404 error in the DubBot app. I certainly was not expecting that. I jumped out to LinkedIn and looked up...
I recently read 9 Accessibility Myths and Pushbacks (And How to Answer Them) by Stephanie Walter. In this blog post, Ms. Walter identifies nine reasons people give for not doing accessibility well or, even worse, not doing accessibility at...
While working on a Google Slides presentation celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), I thought it might be a good time to pause and write a few words about accessibility best practices for creating slide...
May always brings a bit of extra energy to the accessibility world, and DubBot is leaning all the way in. Between Global Accessibility Awareness Day and the wider push for digital inclusion, it’s a reminder that accessibility is an...
In December 2025, Canada released CAN-ASC-6.2:2025: Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems, the world’s first national standard focused specifically on accessibility in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Imagine AI not just...
A session timeout is when a website or app automatically logs you out after a period of inactivity. They are often regarded as a fundamental safeguard driven by legitimate security concerns. Think of them like a safety timer. If you walk away or...
Hidden content refers to elements on a webpage that are visually concealed but remain accessible to assistive technologies like screen readers, or that are hidden for functional reasons, such as progressive disclosure or interactive widgets. Why...
Too often, accessibility is viewed as a one-time initiative. In reality, accessibility is a system, and like any system, it needs structure, rules, and oversight. That’s where a strategy, a policy, and continuous monitoring come in....
Web forms are among the most interactive elements on the web, acting as essential interfaces for user engagement and data collection. Yet, they are often designed in ways that cause unnecessary cognitive effort. Cognitive load is the mental effort...
If you haven’t heard yet, the DOJ will be extending the ADA Title II web accessibility deadline for public entities with a total population of 50,000 or more by one year, from April 24, 2026, to April 26, 2027. It also...
I recently came across a Slack conversation about a third-party vendor and their disregard for obvious accessibility issues, and the frustration it was causing their customer. It felt very familiar. Back when I managed a higher ed website, I...
ALT text is a vital part of how users experience your content. Yet for most of us, there has been no clear way to evaluate ALT text at scale. Without a clear view, it can be all too easy to overlook and even easier to forget. That’s all...
Before the DubBot Sales Team headed to the Windy City for DrupalCon Chicago, I asked them to keep an ear out for insights that tend to surface when you’re talking face-to-face, in real time, with practitioners, partners, and...
Microcopy is easy to underestimate. Let’s face it, it really doesn’t look like much. It’s a handful of words on a button. A line of helper text under a form field. A quick error message that shows up at exactly the...
Most advice on creating accessible emails centers around ALT text, color contrast, and proper semantic structure. All essential elements for any digital creation to be accessible. But if you’re a content marketer like me, trying to...
What is a Modal Dialog? A modal dialog is an intentional interruption of the user’s experience. It takes over the underlying page, dimming or locking it down, making it inactive until the user responds to the information in the...
Keyboard-only testing is one of the simplest, most revealing ways to evaluate the accessibility and usability of your website. While many people effortlessly glide through websites using a mouse or touchscreen, a significant portion of users rely...
If you want to understand how accessible your website really is, there’s no substitute for experiencing it as many users do, and that’s with a screen reader. One of the most widely used screen readers is NVDA, and the good...
Good web design doesn’t make users stop and think about how something works. It simply works. That’s the power of affordances. Those subtle design cues that tell people how they can interact with something. A classic example...
Caveat: This post will discuss accessibility testing with VoiceOver, Apple’s free screen reader. You don’t need to install any software or plugins. You do need to be on a Mac computer or laptop, and for the best results, run...
Footnotes look simple on the surface - a tiny superscript link that leads to small print at the bottom. But in digital spaces, they’re anything but simple. On the web, they rely on semantic structure and sometimes even ARIA to clearly...
If you work in digital accessibility long enough, you start to hear two very different conversations. One is about what’s required to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the criteria that often define legal risk and...
Accessibility should be baked in long before a piece of content goes live. When accessibility is addressed only at the review stage, it becomes a last-minute fix rather than a built-in part of your content strategy. When you make it part of the...
This is a follow-up post to the four-part ALT text series that began with ALT Text Isn’t a Description. It’s a Content Decision. An effective web accessibility strategy doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a...
This is the final post in a four-part series on ALT text. Because writing it well (and knowing when not to write it) deserves more than a quick checklist. See part three, ALT Text Is Read by AT, Search Engines, and AI—Write...
This is the third post in a four-part series on ALT text. Because writing it well (and knowing when not to write it) deserves more than a quick checklist. See part two, The Most Accessible ALT Text Is Sometimes No ALT Text at...
This is the second post in a four-part series on ALT text. Because writing it well (and knowing when not to write it) deserves more than a quick checklist. See part one, ALT Text Isn’t a Description. It’s a Content...
This post begins a four-part series on ALT text. Because writing it well (and knowing when not to write it) deserves more than a quick checklist. See part two The Most Accessible ALT Text Is Sometimes No ALT Text at...
In December 2024, I wrote a blog post outlining several accessibility certifications, including three from IAAP and the Trusted Tester Process & Certification Program. The post's main idea...
That’s right! DubBot now inventories all your images with every Site crawl. And the best part? You don’t have to request access to Image Inventory. It’s turned on by default and ready to make you a rock star....
What exactly are footnotes? Footnotes are notes that are placed at the end of a page and used to reference parts of the text (generally using superscript numbers). Writers use footnotes for several purposes, including citations,...
When people think about AI and websites, they often imagine sophisticated algorithms crawling pages, analyzing keywords, or ranking content. But in reality, AI systems read web content in ways strikingly similar to how screen readers...
Have you ever looked at the dashboard of an automated testing tool and thought, Why is accessibility sitting next to SEO and broken links? At first, accessibility might seem to belong in a totally different category. More legal, maybe...
Budgeting for accessibility is a deliberate, forward-looking process. It requires understanding why accessibility matters, planning for the real costs involved, and thoughtfully allocating resources over time. Why Accessibility Requires a...
Conversations about accessibility testing often default to a familiar refrain: You can’t just automate, it has to be manual, too. That statement is true, but it’s frequently delivered with an undertone that sells...
I’ve been taking advantage of the mobile nature of podcasts lately (earbuds in, phone in my back pocket) in keeping up to date on accessibility trends and strategies (especially those related to AI) and, in general, what folks are doing...
Early in my career, building websites meant writing HTML by hand, often in Notepad. No visual editors or drag-and-drop tools, just tags and a lot of trial and error. As the tools evolved, so did my workflow. I moved from Dreamweaver to...
One of the building blocks for a sustainable accessibility strategy is a remediation plan. An accessibility remediation plan is a structured, repeatable approach that outlines how you'll test for and identify accessibility issues, decide what to...
Disability etiquette sounds so formal, but at its core, it’s really just about being a decent human with a bit of extra awareness baked in. Most awkward moments don’t come from bad intentions; they come from uncertainty and not...
Accessibility isn’t a niche. It affects everyone, from the person using a screen reader to an employee who needs an inclusive workplace, to a customer who wants to use a website without getting stuck. Accessibility must be a...
Like many others you may read, this post is about New Year’s resolutions. What may make this post different is that I am encouraging you not to make a New Year’s resolution. Or at least not make a typical resolution, one rooted...
From the DubBot family to yours, we wish you a happy New Year filled with peace, joy, and prosperity.
As a blog writer focused on accessibility topics such as standards, laws, tools, best practices, and the latest trends and developments, I spend roughly 40 – 50% of my 40-hour week conducting research. That means reading reports and...
First unveiled on Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2025 and then expanded during Apple’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference 2025, Apple launched Accessibility Nutrition Labels in their App Store. Accessibility Nutrition Labels...
The web is constantly evolving. Standards change, design trends come and go, and digital teams are always balancing competing priorities. Yet amid all this movement, one thing remains consistent. Accessibility issues continue to surface. Each...
New England Drupal Camp (NEDCamp) was a great success this year, as it is every year. DubBot is proud to be a NEDCamp sponsor. The NEDSummit on Higher Education brought together marketing and technology professionals from a wide range of colleges...
ARIA can be a powerful tool for creating accessible web content. But it’s not a universal solution. When misused, it can actually generate accessibility barriers rather than removing them, creating confusion for assistive technologies...
Persistent navigation, or sticky navigation, remains fixed to the top or side of the screen as users scroll. Marketers love it because key links stay visible. Designers love it because it feels sleek and convenient. And while sticky navigation can...
Today, we’re grateful for all the folks who show up every day, pushing accessibility forward one fix, feature, and fearless audit at a time. Your work makes the web kinder and easier for everyone. Thank you...
Several weeks ago, as I do most mornings, I was scrolling through my copy of the CNN 5 Things newsletter. In the section called Breakfast Browse, there was a link titled 'Vibe coding' named Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year. I was...
What is an Accessibility Policy? An accessibility policy is a clear, internal framework that spells out your organization’s commitment to building accessible digital products. It defines the standards your organization follows, the...
An effective web accessibility strategy doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long-term framework that weaves accessibility into everything from leadership and company culture to ideation and design, coding and content creation, and...
I try not to begin a blog post with a definition. In fact, some folks have told me it’s just not good form. But in this particular case, I feel it’s necessary. The subject of ableism, the word itself, even ...does a lot of...
When you're building an accessible website, elements like headers, headings, and titles can seem similar and even inconsequential. But actually, each element plays a significant role in creating proper content structure that makes it easier for...
Imagine a student exploring a digital archive of 19th-century letters, or a researcher diving into an interactive map of historical migration patterns. Now imagine that a student or researcher can’t fully engage because the site...
Back in May of this year, I wrote a blog post about the importance of a sustainable, continuous accessibility monitoring strategy for ensuring long-term digital accessibility compliance and improvement. This blog post is a...
DubBot is proud to announce its sponsorship of the EvolveDigital Summit, taking place November 20–21, 2025, in New York City. No matter your role, a developer, designer, strategist, marketer, or AI expert, the EvolveDigital Summit brings...
Providing a safe, inclusive, and accessible environment at Halloween for your friends and neighbors involves making simple sensory-friendly adjustments, offering non-food options, accommodating communication differences, and ensuring that...
The Analyze feature just got an upgrade. Previously, full-site re-analysis was handled behind the scenes by the DubBot team. Thanks to valuable client feedback, account and site-level administrators can now run a complete Analyze across their...
New England Drupal Camp (also known as NEDcamp) celebrates its twenty-first birthday this November 14-15. DubBot is proud to be a sponsor, and I'm thrilled to be an attendee. NEDcamp is held at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island and...
As I do most evenings, I was scrolling through LinkedIn posts, looking for content that would inspire a blog post and, in the process, stay up to date with the accessibility space and all that it encompasses. I came across an excellent...
If you’ve ever flipped through a book, you’ve used pagination. On websites and in digital documents, pagination (sometimes referred to as breadcrumbs) works the same way. It breaks content into manageable pages rather than...
DubBot is proud to be a sponsor for New England Drupal Camp on November 14-15, 2025! Our own Amy Helfman, a longtime Drupal user and developer, will be on-site for this outstanding event that offers a community-driven space to learn, share, and...
Who says conferences are all business? Some bring swag, we brought 150 Lite Brites as give-aways. At this year’s Digital Colloquium, DubBot traded laptops for pegs and let creativity take the lead. The results? A mashup of bold colors,...
Every October, we recognize National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). It's a time to celebrate the contributions of workers with disabilities, raise awareness about ongoing barriers, and recommit to creating inclusive...
A well-crafted website accessibility statement is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate to visitors that your organization has made a genuine commitment to accessibility and inclusivity. Back in 2021, I wrote a blog post on...
Have you ever zoomed in on a website to make the text easier to read, only to end up scrolling left and then right, then to the left again, just to try and read the first sentence? That’s precisely the barrier WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion...
Broken links happen for many different reasons. And though they may seem minor, they cause ripple effects across accessibility, SEO, AEO, and user experience. Let’s break down how broken links affect accessibility, SEO, AEO, and user...
Digital accessibility, when done right, is designed to improve the experience for everyone, not just people with disabilities. But yes, there are cases where accessibility features can impact website performance. Those cases are primarily due to...
Task management is the process of overseeing a task throughout its entire lifecycle, from inception to completion. It is a fundamental practice for both individuals and teams, designed to enhance efficiency, productivity, and collaboration. So...
Let’s be honest. Most of us don’t give file names much thought. We choose names that make sense to us personally or for the project we’re working on, without considering how clear they are to others. But file names...
Drupal is a powerful, enterprise-grade CMS. It’s flexible, scalable, and trusted by organizations with big, complex digital footprints. Managing all that content and complexity can be a significant challenge. DubBot simplifies things for...
Accessibility isn’t just about color contrast, focus indicators, and screen readers. The way we write matters, too. Did you know the average American reads at a 7th- to 8th-grade level? That’s a helpful benchmark...
As I gear up to renew my Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) certification, I'm currently taking a mini-course offered by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). The course...
When your web content appears as a solid wall of text, readers can feel overwhelmed and click away before they even start. That’s a missed chance to connect and share your message. This is where lists come in. There’s a reason...
The whole point of accessibility is to make things easier for everyone. So why are you okay with accessibility tools that are so complex only a handful of your team are willing to use them? Why settle for an accessibility tool that’s...
If you’ve invested in an accessibility platform, it should work for everyone on your team, including those who use assistive technology. So what happens when the very tool meant to help you meet accessibility standards can’t...
With current shifts in public sentiment and external pressures regarding DEI, some organizations have paused, rebranded, or scaled back their initiatives. The simple truth is, if you market, sell, inform, educate, connect, or build community...
I recently attended Digital Colloquium's Accessibility Summit—hands down one of my favorite events of the year. Niki Ramesh delivered this year's keynote, Using AI to Improve User Experience, which was both timely and...
At DubBot, great technology is just one part of our solution. True success comes from supporting our users with exceptional service and a genuine understanding of our clients’ accessibility goals. Our Client Support Team is at the...
Are the instructions on your website accessible to everyone? You can answer that question by testing your content against Success Criterion 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics. This criterion requires that directions on a website or app don’t...
When the DOJ rolled out its final rule for Title II of the ADA for state and local governments, it brought some long-overdue clarity—and also raised critical questions surrounding the topic of archiving. Suddenly, it’s not just...
