#accessibility

#accessibility

Millions of pounds a month are lost by UK shops and businesses because they are not accessible to people with disabilities, according to an awareness campaign. Purple Tuesday, which says a "mindset change" is needed, is urging retailers to consider new ways of improving inclusion such as adapting sensory experiences for neurodivergent people. Some 16 million people in the UK have a disability, and 90% of disabled people found their shopping experience was affected by a lack of accessibility, according to the Business Disability Forum.

As someone living with chronic illness, I've had to be creative when it comes to where I work. On good days, I'm in my actual office, but when I'm flaring, I'm usually curled up in bed with my laptop on its side, which is obviously not ideal. Finding a setup that's actually stable and ergonomic has been a struggle, to say the least. That's why this rolling bedside table from FlexiSpot caught my eye - it looks like it could genuinely make life easier.

Clancy has now posted a personal statement on the Twitch X account, apologizing directly to Emiru and taking responsibility for the incident. "It shouldn't have happened and we take that very seriously," Clancy said in the statement. "We failed, both in allowing it to occur, and in our response following. We mismanaged our communications about the incident, and that includes the comments I made. I apologize to Emiru for all that took place."

October 2025 has been absolutely incredible for tiny home enthusiasts. We've seen designs that push boundaries, challenge conventions, and prove that small spaces can deliver big on style and functionality. These aren't your typical cookie-cutter tiny houses cramming everything into a loft bedroom. Instead, we're looking at homes that solve real problems and create genuinely livable spaces. What strikes me most about this month's standout designs is how each one tackles a different challenge in tiny living.

Mitcham and Morden MP, Dame Siobhain McDonagh, has called on LINK, the operator of the UK's banking hubs, to rethink its decision that the area is ineligible for one. With the closure of Lloyds, Mitcham will lose its last remaining bank a lifeline for many local people and small businesses who rely on in-person banking, said Dame Siobhain. They shouldn't have to travel to another town just to access basic financial services.

Campaigners including Tanni Grey-Thompson have warned that disabled drivers are at risk of being locked out of the electric car transition because of inaccessible chargers. The former Paralympics champion and the Electric Vehicle Association England are pushing for the government to introduce standards to ensure chargers are easy to reach. The number of public chargers across the UK is rising rapidly, with 17,400 two an hour installed in the year to July. However, the lack of standards means that disabled drivers have often been unable to trust that they can use them.

Ambient animations are the kind of passive movements you might not notice at first. However, they bring a design to life in subtle ways. Elements might subtly transition between colours, move slowly, or gradually shift position. Elements can appear and disappear, change size, or they could rotate slowly, adding depth to a brand's personality. In Part 1, I illustrated the concept of ambient animations by recreating the cover of a Quick Draw McGraw comic book as a CSS/SVG animation.

We don't need more courses. We need better ones. Everywhere I look, someone is launching a "Learn Figma in 5 Days" crash course or a "Top 10 AI Hacks for Beginners" tutorial. And don't get me wrong - those courses aren't useless. They scratch an itch, they help you pick up a tool, and sometimes they even get you to a quick win.

They might shout or slow down their words to an exaggerated crawl- veeeerrry slooowly -thinking it helps. But with hearing loss, louder isn't always better, and neither is overly slow speech. Both can distort the shape of words on the lips, making lipreading harder instead of easier. Others forget the basics. They turn away, cover their mouths, or call out from another room, expecting us to catch every word. (Spoiler alert: We won't.)

Pulli Bin was created to make trash removal effortless. By studying how people of all abilities interact with traditional trash cans, the Pulli team uncovered a fundamental flaw: lifting full trash bags creates strain and often leads to tearing. Pulli Bin reimagines this experience with dual front-opening doors that open outwards, eliminating the need for upward lifting and setting a new standard for ease and usability

Dockless hired e-bikes are popular, convenient and emit zero emissions, and micro-mobility is often seen as the solution to transport in cities. But the sector is unregulated. There are concerns over injuries and road safety with a cohort of newer cyclists using the bikes. And one of the biggest headaches is where they park - dockless meaning they can be left pretty much anywhere. Pavements are blocked and there is criticism the rollout of the bikes has not been matched with infrastructure.

A group of local disability advocates is making headway on a lawsuit against the City of New York that claims the city's Open Streets program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Federal Judge Eric Komitee will hear oral arguments on Thursday from the plaintiffs, many of whom are members of the ADA-advocacy group Access for All, and the defendants, including the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) and other third-party groups.

To celebrate, they're making sure everyone can share in the magic, with a full range of accessibility options so every guest can enjoy the experience. Families can look forward to the third annual sensory-friendly performance, presented with TDF, plus select shows that include open captioning, audio descriptions, American Sign Language interpreters, and more ways to make the holiday fun truly welcoming for all.

AI is able to build things in minutes or even seconds that would take humans hours to do. But its biggest strength is also its biggest flaw. AI is, at its core, a tool used to imitate human knowledge in an advanced capacity. So while it's able to produce work faster, it also inherits all our biases. It's important to address these biases when building products to ensure that what we're developing can be used by everyone.

Chiltern Railways has shown off the first of its refurbished Mark 5A trains, which will be introduced between London and the West Midlands from early 2026. The fleet of 13 refurbished trains will replace Chiltern's oldest carriages, which are nearly 50 years old, and once the whole fleet is replaced, they will be able to increase train services by some 10,000 seats per day from next December.

The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope," Weber said in a statement released Monday.

Reading remains one of humanity's most fundamental activities, yet millions of visually impaired people face significant barriers when trying to access books, magazines, or educational materials that rely heavily on visual content. Current solutions like audiobooks handle text well but completely miss images, diagrams, and visual elements that often carry crucial information. E-readers with Braille displays exist but remain expensive, limited, and unable to convey the rich visual content that makes many books complete experiences.

Per The WebAIM Million report, low contrast text represents 79.1% of all errors on the 1M homepages they analyzed via automated testing. People with low vision often struggle with text that blends into its background, especially if they also have a color vision deficiency. And as people like you and me age, this becomes especially important. Ensuring a minimum contrast ratio between text and background makes it easier to read, even for those who see limited or no color.

I've spent my life determined to be one of a kind perhaps because I'm a twin. During our birth, my younger-by-two-minutes brother's umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. It cut off my air supply, which left me deaf, while his hearing was unimpaired. That's sibling rivalry for you. I use hearing aids and am a strong lip reader, as well as being fluent in British Sign Language. When I take my aids out to sleep,

AI design tools are everywhere right now. But here's the question every designer is asking: Do they actually solve real UI problems - or just generate pretty mockups? To find out, I ran a simple experiment with one rule: no cherry-picking, no reruns - just raw, first-attempt results. I fed 10 common UI design prompts - from accessibility and error handling to minimalist layouts - into 5 different AI tools. The goal? To see which AI came closest to solving real design challenges, unfiltered.

The space itself is a 3-story box beneath the cafe, painted white and projected on every wall and the floor with the show itself. There is stepped seating, as well as benches and pillows, to sit on the floor. There is also plenty of space for kids to run around and follow the specially animated elements projected onto the floor. The projections fit perfectly together, allowing for a shadowless and seamless viewing experience that truly encompasses all 360 degrees.

Irina opens with an ATM example to illustrate how routine tasks can become inaccessible when design and language don't align with the user's needs. When you use a familiar ATM in your native language, there's no one waiting behind you or distractions. But remove just one element, like language familiarity or a clear interface, and the experience quickly shifts from simple to stressful.

The tiny house movement has long promised affordable, minimalist living, but many designs fall short in terms of long-term habitability. Australian company Sonic Steel is challenging these limitations with their latest creation, the Mark VI - VIC, a shipping container home that prioritizes comfort and accessibility without sacrificing the compact footprint that makes tiny living appealing. This innovative approach represents a fundamental shift in how container homes can serve as genuine long-term residences.

For this experiment, I wore the crossbody strap with the iPhone Air. It just seemed like these two were made for each other. Apple also sent the very basic bumper case, a polycarbonate bumper that runs along the periphery of the phone and attaches to the strap. The combination of the two seemed like a perfect fit, even if my wife commented that I looked like a suburban soccer mom wearing it. Here's how things went.

This is for me. The styles in here are useful to me. They are things I find myself doing very often (or forgetting to do.) I'd like to be using this in most demos I make and dipping into it for any future project. I do hope y'all will find some value in it too of course, hence blogging about it, but as a guiding principal it's for me.

We've been hard at work giving the venue a glow up,