Intopia

The digital landscape is changing fast. AI agents, voice interfaces, new accessibility standards and emerging technologies are changing how people interact with digital products. There's a lot to keep up with. A11y Camp 2026 is bringing these conversations together under the one roof, with practical sessions from people working at the leading edge of accessibility and inclusive design. Invest in the skills you'll need next by joining us at A11y Camp 2026, 23–25 November at ICC Sydney. Bringing the team? Save 15% when you book five or more conference tickets. And save 10% when you add a workshop to your conference registration. Explore the program and register: https://dub.sh/1TVGK9p #A11yCamp #Accessibility #AI #InclusiveDesign

On Thursday 15 October, I'm joining Patrick H. Lauke and Eric Eggert, moderated by Gian Wild for the next OZeWAI Ask the Professionals session. We're going to talk about WCAG. The standard everyone loves to talk about, but most people don't enjoy reading (trust me, I've asked). We'll use real examples to look at how success criteria and conformance work in practice, and how understanding them helps teams make informed decisions. Someone in the Intopia team calls me the Walking WCAG. And I'm flattered, but Patrick and Eric are renowned for their WCAG knowledge, so I'll be there to learn as much as I contribute. Event details: Date: Thursday 15 October 2026, 6 to 7:30pm AEDT (UTC+11) Location: Online (Zoom) Register for free: https://lnkd.in/gMYD_vJe What's one question about WCAG success criteria or conformance that you'd like answered?

Most of the recent Intopia bookmarklet articles have explained a whole set of bookmarklets. This bookmarklet is big enough to get an article all to itself. :) ContrastChecker lets you sample two colours directly from a page using an eyedropper, or enter HEX/RGB values manually, then automatically checks the contrast ratio against 3:1, 4.5:1 and 7:1 thresholds. It also includes keyboard shortcuts, which are particularly handy for checking colours that only appear on hover or focus. The ContrastChecker bookmarklet was created by Intopia's amazing Ani C., who has packed a ridiculous amount of functionality and accessibility features into one bookmarklet! Here's a detailed explainer on how to use it: https://lnkd.in/gsc6k-EV

Time for Trivia Tuesday! While using native HTML elements is preferred, when creating a custom interactive element, there are extra attributes that are needed to make sure it is available to assistive technology and keyboard users. Poll: At a minimum, what does a custom interactive element need to be usable by keyboard and assistive technology users? A) role, name B) role, name, tabindex=”0” C) role, tabindex=”0” D) name, tabindex=”0” Vote in the poll below or comment with your answer.

Want to engage people with disability in your research or co-design, but worried about getting it wrong? That’s pretty normal. We’ve just released a new short course: “Engaging with people with disability”. It covers some of the foundations for engaging respectfully and confidently, including: • understanding disability and intersectionality • inclusive language • respectful interaction • unconscious bias • and yes, getting it wrong Because you’re probably going to get something wrong at some point. We all do. What matters is how you handle it. This course was codesigned with people with disabilities, and includes real people with disabilities sharing their lived experience via video interviews. It's available as part of our training bundles - find out more at: https://lnkd.in/gTs4bH8t

Want to engage people with disability in your research or co-design, but worried about getting it wrong? That’s pretty normal. We’ve just released a new short course: “Engaging with people with disability”. It covers some of the foundations for engaging respectfully and confidently, including: - understanding disability and intersectionality - inclusive language - respectful interaction - unconscious bias - and yes, getting it wrong Because you’re probably going to get something wrong at some point. We all do. What matters is how you handle it. The course is available as part of one of our bundles: https://lnkd.in/ghzPgXpX

Millions of people across Australia were counted on Census night last month.   A digital service built for an entire country can’t leave anyone out. People using screen readers. People navigating by voice. People using magnification, or a keyboard alone.   For the second Census in a row, the Australian Bureau of Statistics engaged Intopia to support the accessibility of the Census digital service.   Our work included an accessibility assessment against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, with testing across nine assistive technology and platform combinations. These included JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, ZoomText, Dragon and TalkBack.   We also conducted scenario-based usability testing with people with disability, helping to uncover real-world barriers that technical assessment alone can miss.   Thank you to the participants who shared their time, expertise and lived experience, and to the ABS team for trusting us with this important work.   The 2021 Census was recognised as the most accessible Australian Census ever. For 2026, the ABS set out to raise the bar again.   Learn more about the 2026 Census: https://lnkd.in/dhyvJHmc

Myself and Christopher P. are running a workshop at A11y Camp Australia 2026! Teaching AI to build more accessible software with skills. This is a practical, hands-on session to help you build more accessible software with AI. Find out more at https://lnkd.in/dejwhbWC

Time for Trivia Tuesday! CSS media queries help improve accessibility by adapting styles to user preferences.  Poll: If the system reports ‘prefers-contrast: no-preference', what happens when high contrast styling on a site uses the ‘prefers-contrast’ CSS media query without specifying a value (e.g., @media (prefers-contrast) { ... } )? A) Applies high contrast styles  B) Applies low contrast styles  C) Last media query takes effect  D) Contrast styles not applied Vote in the poll below or comment with your answer.

Are you an NVDA user or tester? The NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2026 is now open: https://lnkd.in/gC_zfTin If you haven't come across NVDA, it's a free, open source screen reader for Windows, built by NV Access, an Australian not-for-profit founded by two blind developers who were tired of screen reading software costing more than the computer it ran on. It's now been translated into more than 55 languages and used in over 175 countries. The survey is anonymous, comments are welcome, and you can add your email if you'd like NV Access to follow up. Please pass it on! PLUS - if you’re new to NVDA our free ‘Getting started with NVDA’ course is part of the Accessibility Freebies Pack: https://lnkd.in/g8yi88xt