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Nat Tarnoff Posts

Quick Tip: Stop Gate Keeping Tech

Quick Tip: Stop Gate Keeping Tech

Published on September 8, 2025

Technology is moving at an ever rapid pace. Some of the recent “AI” things to come along is one area that comes to mind. AI has its flaws and used incorrectly can do great harm, but it also can also improve the quality of life for others. Don’t stop them from using tools that help them, no matter your belief of such tools.

Ok, that’s the tip. You don’t have to read further. But if you desire to continue, I need to let you know what comes next is me processing an interaction I had that spawned today’s quick tip.

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How to Minimize Legal Risks in Accessibility Compliance

How to Minimize Legal Risks in Accessibility Compliance

Published on September 1, 2025

I’ve been doing accessibility work long enough that I can confidently say, you cannot avoid lawsuits about accessibility. What you can do is minimize your risk. If you do not have an accessibility effort going on in your company, start one. This guide will help you prioritize where you should be looking first. If you have a program going, this can help focus your efforts into where most lawsuits look first.

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A11y 101: 2.4.3 Focus Order

A11y 101: 2.4.3 Focus Order

Published on August 25, 2025

Some of my clients have faced lawsuits that I have helped them assess and address. By far the most common issue is images lacking alternative text. But not far behind it is the the focus order of the page. The vast majority of the complaints I’ve seen have claiming focus order issues are problematic, really aren’t. Today we’re going to look at focus order and why people interpret this wrong.

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The First Rule of ARIA

The First Rule of ARIA

Published on August 18, 2025

The internet today far exceeds what we initially thought it could be. We’ve advanced so far that we can replicate desktop applications running in the browser. Cloud-based software is everywhere. We’ve crafted frameworks to speed up development and solve the hard parts of server-client communication.

But the same problem keeps happening. We keep rebuilding interactive components using custom coding. And we forget all the things we need to do to make them accessible.

Today I’m looking at a why we should be using more native HTML controls and fewer custom ones. I’ll show you what is included if you use a native control.

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A11y 101: 2.4.2 Page Titled
A11y 101: 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks

A11y 101: 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks

Published on August 4, 2025

You’ve most likely heard the term “skip link.” The standard take on the skip link is we include a visually-hidden link at the top of the page. When it receives focus, it becomes visible and when activated jumps you to the main content. While this is the primary use and function of this guideline, I’ve found it applies to other areas. Let’s look at the different reasons and methods.

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A11y 101: 2.3.1 Three Flashes or Below Threshold
Quick tip: Use fewer links

Quick tip: Use fewer links

Published on July 21, 2025

SEO folks, come at me. The overall product card has gotten cluttered with too many calls to action. It’s killing the point of the interface.

Ecommerce sites have a mind-boggling amount of links. Especially if you are a large company selling diverse things. Just to get to the product list, we first navigate through a mega menu. We do this to choose a category on most eCom sites. Then on the category page, we have to deal with a bunch of filters. If we’re lucky they will be in accordions and we can close them to skip.

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A11y 101: 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide

A11y 101: 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide

Published on July 14, 2025

It was Christmas Day in 2012 that I had my first major incident. You see, for as long as I could remember I suffered from migraines. I recall having to takes days off school when I was a freshman. But they started before that. At this moment in time, I was getting 20+ migraines a month. I had migraines that would last days. I had some last hours. Those were the worst. I’d start to feel better to only have another come on before the end of the day. Along with the migraines would come anxiety, nausea, dizziness, brain fog, aphasia. But that day was different.

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A11y 101: 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable

A11y 101: 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable

Published on July 7, 2025

You know the feeling. You’ve just spent the last twenty minutes filling out a form on a website. Suddenly, it asks for a specific piece of information. You need to dig for this information. You spend the next 7 minutes digging in your desk, files, computer, until you find it. Flip back to your form, and you are logged out.

If you are lucky, the form will allow you sign back in and continue from there. There’s a good chance you may need to start over. For you it is frustrating and takes time. But what if you can’t complete the form in the time given? Maybe it’s because you can’t answer the questions quickly enough.

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