Notes # 1: Web Almanac, Sundance Film Festival, Abusive Lawsuits...

Personal Notes

2026 has started a bit fast for me. On January 13, we attended a digital accessibility event took place on Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus with Turkish Technology . We saw that, unfortunately, one of the main issues of disability organizations in TRNC is not digital accessibility. Main focus is on infrastructural issues. Still, being there and meeting with different organizations was a great experience. After our return, we, again as Turkish Technology, received an invitation for Zero Project Conference! We will be in Vienna for two panels between 18 – 20 February. For now, I am working on content that we will present.

News

• Missouri Chamber Works To Protect Businesses From Abusive Lawsuits: A controversial legal update from the US. The Missouri Chamber is trying to build a balance between right to equal access and small businesses with limited capacity. To protect them from abusive lawsuits, that means “targeting minor technical issues instead of advancing meaningful accessibility”, businesses will have more time to correct issues or opportunity to counter-sue.
• Disability Inclusive Sundance Film Festival: I wasn’t at the festival but it seems like there were some good steps for accessibility. Closed captions and American Sign Language interpretation is available for each film and screenings. On the other hand, there is a decrease in number of films with audio description compared to last two years. Hope for better next year, may be with the help of AI.
• Web Almanac 2025 – Accessibility: HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report was released and Chapter 6 is on accessibility. The study “is similar to that of the WebAim Million but with differences in sites crawled and analysis tools used.” The average accessibility score is 1 point higher than last year (not an important update for me) and the most common accessibility issues are not surprising: Color contrast, link naming, heading hierarchy, and image alt text. Overlay usage has increased but not as much as last year. So, rise of the overlays are slowing - happy about that. You can look at the report’s conclusion part for a great summary.

Inspirations

• Summerbell: A reading Tool for Dyslexia – YouTube: An interesting and simple solution for visual dyslexics to enhance their reading. Summerbell turns linear text into a rainbow-shaped text to decrease cognitive overload and improve comprehension. Not sure if it works, but I'll give it a try.
• During Helene, I Just Wanted a Plain Text Website: A striking blog post explains why we need simplicity. Josh Winn, a web developer, wrote about his experience during and after Hurricane Helene and how he couldn't reach information. He clearly emphasized our need for simple websites and apps that can work on low loading speed caused by crisis when infrastructure collapses. As someone from Turkey, an earthquake-prone region, I hope we can do it.
• Building the Brain of Your Accessibility AI: A great post explains how AI assistants can be trained for accessibility. In the article, there is a link for a GitHub project contains valuable resources as well.

An Article From Me

At the end of 2025, I wrote a “Year In Review” article summarizing Trump, European Accessibility Act, developments on AI and more. I have also added questions for 2026. Waiting for your comments: Digital Accessibility Review of 2025 and What to Expect in 2026

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