Craig Abbott

Filed a bug report with Chrome on Android this morning. Found a weird issue where TalkBack is atomically announcing everything inside of a dialog when the state of a nested control is changed: issues.chromium.org/issues/57631... #a11y #accessibility

There’s a guy in the gym wearing a “Silverback” branded T-shirt with a big aggressive looking ape on the back. But, it’s not a Silverback, it’s a Chimpanzee. It’s really bothering me. My autism can’t let it go! 😆

Automated screen reader testing with Claude Code, VoiceOver and Gherkin. Did you know you can control VoiceOver and capture what it says using automated scripts? In this post, I walk you through how, and some of it's limitations. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/au... #accessibility #ai #a11y

So, at @tetralogical.com, we've done a thing. We've started open sourcing our component examples, with their WCAG requirements, Gherkin scenarios, and working Playwright tests. There's 8 so far, and more on the way: tetralogical.com/blog/2026/10... #Accessibility #a11y

Keep calm and carry on. Stiff upper lip. Pull yourself together lad. Worse things happen at sea… I heard these all the time growing up. Starting to realise why being emotionally repressed is so common here. It’s pretty much just a symptom of British culture to ignore your feelings and mask.

One thing that amuses me about ADHD, is months later finding my futile attempt to manage it. Found a sticky note on the bottom of my mouse mat that reads: “Prep slides for JSHeroes by 15 May”. Only 5 months late for that reminder!

In today’s episode of “nothing shocks me about the ethics of Meta”, their Muse AI product is secretly building dossiers on everybody, and is programmed not to be transparent about what it has stored. Engineers fear a massive data breach is on the horizon. 🫠 time.com/article/2026... #ai

Why do “PDF remediation specialists” constantly target accessibility specialists on LinkedIn? Surely we’re the least likely people to need that? In other news, are there any electricians on here, who would like to pay for my new plug rewiring service?

I’m looking forward to seeing all the companies who are replacing juniors with AI, complaining in 5 years time that there is a lack of senior talent in the industry. As they say, “you reap what you sow”.

In 15 minutes I'll be live with the friendly people at #InclusiveDesign24 to present “How we want to make WCAG better” www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDvd...

Next up in our Foundations series, @craigabbott.co.uk takes us through the accessibility tree and how screen readers read what is on screen to people with seeing disabilities. Foundations: the accessibility tree tetralogical.com/blog/2026/09... #AccessibilityFoundations #SustainableAccessibility

New blog post. Some thoughts on why accessibility work might often rock your confidence: www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/th... #accessibility #a11y

I’ve been writing about accessibility strategy again. This time it’s on the @tetralogical.com blog: tetralogical.com/blog/2026/09... #accessibility #a11y

I’m really enjoying writing at the moment. I’ve had over 30 blog posts in draft for months and felt like I was barely treading water. But, I’m at the point now where I’m starting to get a few of them over the line with less and less effort. ADHD in full motion 😅

New blog post: Using maths to balance your heading styles. Using a modular scale, size, spacing and weight to create accessible and visually balanced headings, for all six levels. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/us... #accessibility #a11y #design #ux #css

Just been messaged by a recruiter for DWP, seeing if I want to apply for a working level accessibility specialist role. A role I literally wrote the job spec for as part of the strategy I created when I was Head of Accessibility there. I feel annoyed. Am I allowed to be annoyed? 😆

New blog post. Exploring an issue where TalkBack keeps switching between an American and English accent. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/wh... #accessibility #a11y #TalkBack

Anyone else a people pleaser, with all the power tools? Who has to replace all the blades when they actually come to use them, because they’re all worn out from everybody else borrowing them all the damn time? 😅

Don't think of it as the hottest summer we've ever experienced. Think of it as the coolest summer of the rest of our lives. 🥵

A conversation packed with insights between @craigabbott.co.uk and @neciudan.dev in his Señors @ Scale podcast about sustainable accessibility and the three C's framework: compliance, culture, capability. - YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q2s... - Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/33Xe...

AI models have started putting invisible watermarks into the content they write. So, if you use AI to write stuff for you, re-structure your own writing, or even just use it to correct your grammar, then may want to know how this could affect you! www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/ar... #ai #EuAiAct

It's been a while since I've done a people looking for work thread. If you're looking for work, put what you do and what you're looking for (full time, freelance etc) as a reply. Companies: get hiring people!

New blog post. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why accessibility initiatives are hard. It’s often not because of standards. Or that people lack the skills or knowledge to do it. It’s often just where an org chooses to start. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/ac... #accessibility #a11y

Had issues for ages with my MacBook's fingerprint sensor not working when mounted on a stand and connected to my dock. Just realised this morning my stand must prevent it from grounding. I've just figured out if I touch the body with my other hand, it works fine! So, in future, I must become… Earth!

Re-implemented a light theme on my website rebuild. I’m a dark theme kinda guy, so I always struggle with light colour palettes. However, we’re renovating our bedroom, and I’ve legit used colour swatches from a paint sample booklet. Proof that you just never know where inspiration might come from! 😆

"You can have a compliant website. It doesn't necessarily mean it's usable." New Señors at Scale with @craigabbott.co.uk on sustainable accessibility, testing what automation misses, and why AI writes bad front-end code. https://youtu.be/3Q2se9jI-wA

Issue 1 is a go. buttondown.com/craigabbott/...

I made an app! What Can't I Press helps you discover what keyboard shortcuts are already claimed by running apps, with a focus on screen readers. This helps prevent you from overriding something someone might rely on to get what they want or need. #a11y github.com/ericwbailey/...

I’m close to launching my redesigned website, and I’ve realised I’m terrible at collecting feedback / testimonial. If we’ve worked together, or you’ve seen one of my talks and it was useful, and you’re open to me quoting you, I’d really appreciate a couple of sentences of your feedback! ❤️

Finally got around to playing with Anthropic's Fable 5. Man does it chew through tokens! I asked it to audit my CSS on my in progress blog redesign. I hit my session limit on the Max plan and wiped out my contingency funds in 20 minutes lol, I'm now 30% into the next session and it's still not done!

The women Connor McGregor assaulted didn’t get to tap out. I think he should have been forced to continue with that busted knee until Holloway was finished with him.

“My personal worry is that for a long time, we sought to diversify the voices — you know, who is telling the stories? And we tried to give agency to people from different parts of the world,“ she said. “Now we’re giving a voice to machines.” #ai #stereotype restofworld.org/2023/ai-imag...

Finally updated my Raspberry Pi Kiosk project. Look. When I say I'll do something, I'll do it. No need to keep nagging me every 4 years about it! 😆 (sorry) github.com/abbott567/ra...

In bad news, with disability education oversight being moved to the Department of Health and Human Services from the Department of Education, that means Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have power over disability policy positions. New from me at @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

New post: "The AI Strategy Trap" Many orgs are rushing to embed AI for improved productivity, lower costs and more profit. But, they might be rushing into a costly dependency on a technology, with no say in the terms of the lease! www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/th... #ai #strategy #aiStrategy

@craigabbott.co.uk will be speaking at UX Scotland in Edinburgh. His talk, “A.I-11y: should we use large language models for accessibility?”, explores where AI can support accessibility and where it falls short. uxscotland.net/programme/ai... #AIAndAccessibility #UXScotland

Arrived in Edinburgh where I’ll be talking about AI and Accessibility at #UXScotland. If you see me shuffling about and being socially awkward, please come and say “hi!” 😆

On top of everything else that AI is ruining, the memory card I’ve had on my Amazon wish list has rocketed from £130 to £400 thanks to AI orgs buying up all the NAND flash. Probably cheaper for Claude to just imagine the photos I might have taken rather than to actually take them at this point! 😅

New blog post. Our CSS is not opinionated enough. Why our "best practice" advice to always use classes, despite being great for specificity, has quietly stripped the web of a lot of semantic meaning. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/ou... #accessibility #a11y #css

Google I/O summary - shipping an LLM to your Chrome whether you want it or not - destroying search once and for all - pervert glasses 👍

Boarding my flight at Cluj-Napoca airport after an absolutely incredible experience at @jsheroes.io - Thank you for inviting me to speak. I met so many great people and learned so much! And thanks to @neciudan.dev for taking this photo of one of my favourite slides!

Inspired by @danielroe.dev and NPMX, I've started building a Chrome extension, with the sole purpose of applying a dark mode theme to sites using GOVUK Frontend. Been having my retinas blown out since it was first raised by @charlesrt.uk in 2018. I'm tired of waiting now. github.com/alphagov/gov...

Been learning Spanish for about 6 months. Just had my first interaction with a native speaker, completely in Spanish, in Palma de Mallorca airport. Terrifying, but also felt weirdly accomplished!

A common but often undetected accessibility failure, particularly for global organisations, is untranslated alt text. www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2026/do... #accessibility #a11y

Some of you might remember, a while back I wrote a blog post pulling apart a job advert for a UX Accessibility Specialist at JD Sports. It turns out I wasn't shouting into a void. They reached out! We worked together on it, and we got to a good outcome! www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/2025/mi...