Nat Tarnoff

A11y 101 – 4.1.3 Status Messages

Published on August 31, 2026

In the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” the key clue is that a dog did nothing. The dog didn’t bark when an intruder entered. That silence was the evidence.

Your website has the same problem.

A user submits a form. The page doesn’t reload. A loading spinner appears. It vanishes. Something happened—maybe success, maybe failure, maybe the system just gave up. But nothing spoke. Nothing announced. The status message was painted on the screen for sighted users and completely invisible to anyone who couldn’t see it.

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A11y 101 – 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value

A11y 101 – 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value

Published on August 24, 2026

Here’s the thing about screen readers that most developers never learn until it’s too late: they don’t see what you see. They don’t render pixels. They don’t read CSS. They read the accessibility tree.

And if your HTML is a <div> with a click handler and no label, the accessibility tree has nothing to say. To a screen reader, that <div> doesn’t exist.

That’s the core problem WCAG 4.1.2: Name, Role, Value addresses. And honestly, it’s the single most important criterion for making your interface visible to assistive technology.

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The R2 Unit We Deserve vs. The Cloud We’re Selling Our Souls Into

The R2 Unit We Deserve vs. The Cloud We’re Selling Our Souls Into

Published on August 18, 2026

Ever since A New Hope dropped in 1977, and I saw how R2-D2 helped Luke & Han rescue Leia, I’ve wanted my own Droid. Not a marketing gimmick, not a surveillance drone—just a little friend to help organize my life. A pocket R2-D2. For decades, I chased every piece of tech that came out, hoping to find the magic. Digital notebooks, mini laptops, PDAs, iPads, iPhones, Verizon’s Official Star Wars themed Droid phone (yeah, I’m that nerdy). Nothing stuck.

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A11y 101 – 3.3.7 Redundant Entry

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A11y 101 – 3.3.7 Redundant Entry

Published on August 10, 2026

You’re shopping online at your favorite store. You set up an account for future visits. You fill out your name, email, shipping address, billing info, card details. You save the info.

You start shopping and add some items to the cart. The checkout form asks for all that information again. Name, email, address, card. All of it. Fresh blanks.

You stare at the screen. “Didn’t you already know this?”

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A11y 101 – 3.3.4 Error Prevention

A11y 101 – 3.3.4 Error Prevention

Published on August 3, 2026

Imagine buying a car. You sign a contract. Then you discover the dealership changed the interest rate after you clicked “Accept.” Or you transfer money to a bank account. You confirm the transaction. Then you realize you sent it to the wrong person—and the funds are gone.

These aren’t typos. These aren’t forgotten passwords. These are consequential actions with legal, financial, or irreversible data implications.

And if your interface doesn’t protect users from making these mistakes, you’re not just violating WCAG—you’re exposing yourself to liability.

That’s the core of WCAG 3.3.4: Error Prevention. Unlike 3.3.3, which is about helping users fix field-level validation errors, 3.3.4 is about preventing catastrophic mistakes before they happen.

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A11y 101 – 3.3.3 Error Suggestion

A11y 101 – 3.3.3 Error Suggestion

Published on July 27, 2026

You submit a form. An error flashes: “Invalid.” That’s it.

Invalid what? Invalid how? Invalid because you used the wrong format, or invalid because the email is already taken, or invalid because the server had a seizure and forgot what an email even is?

For all the user knows, the system is lying. The form is broken. They’re blocked, with nowhere to go.

That’s where WCAG 3.3.3: Error Suggestion comes in. And its message is simple: tell people how to fix it.

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A11y 101 – 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions

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A11y 101 – 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions

Published on July 20, 2026

Before I Can Fill It, I Need to Know What You’re Asking

There’s a form I encountered recently that had twelve fields. No labels. Just placeholder text inside each input that disappeared the moment you started typing. If you forgot what a field was asking for, you had to delete everything you’d entered just to see the hint again.

Twelve fields. Zero labels. Infinite frustration.

That’s not a design choice. That’s a barrier. And it’s exactly the kind of thing WCAG 3.3.2: Labels or Instructions exists to dismantle.

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Three Months Later: The Algorithm Won. My Wife Nearly Didn’t.

Three Months Later: The Algorithm Won. My Wife Nearly Didn’t.

Published on July 13, 2026

Trigger Warning & Note Before You Read

This post discusses eating disorders, mental health, adverse medication reactions, and hospitalization. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a healthcare professional. You deserve support.

Three months ago, I published “When Algorithms Forget You’re Human.” I wrote about my wife—recovering from an eating disorder, doing well (over a decade with no lapse), dealing with weight gain from disability changes—and how social media kept serving her GLP-1 ads. Skin removal surgery. Weight loss programs. Sono Bello showed up eleven times after she blocked them.

I wrote about how algorithms don’t respect choices. How Amazon Prime offers no way to mark content as problematic. How AI systems act as yes men. How platforms treat vulnerability as revenue opportunity.

Today is three months to the day since that post.

My wife is in a hospital bed.

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What Counts as Experience?

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What Counts as Experience?

Published on July 10, 2026

Finding a job these days is a brutal thing. Artificial intelligence is doing the initial screening and the interviews. There are ghost postings that never lead anywhere. If you do get through, people are facing five, six, sometimes seven rounds of interviews, only to be left hanging, wondering whether there will ever be feedback. Recently I had several colleagues go through this entire process—screening, panels, take-homes, final rounds—only to be rejected and watch the company repost the same opening a week later.

I sat down with a couple of them to talk about their experiences. This is what they had to say. Names have been anonymized.

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A11y 101 – 3.3.1 Error Identification

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A11y 101 – 3.3.1 Error Identification

Published on July 6, 2026

We’ve all been there. You fill out a form. You hit submit. Nothing happens. Maybe the border turns red. Maybe a little icon winks at you. Maybe your computer hums aggressively. But nobody tells you what went wrong.

You stare at the screen. “Did it fail? Did it work? Am I now married to a stranger?”

Silence is rude. Silence is inaccessible. And silence violates WCAG 3.3.1: Error Identification.

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Nat Tarnoff Posts

Trigger Warning & Note Before You Read