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The idea of including alt text for images as metadata into image files pops up every now and then.

Eric Bailey explains some of the many reasons why this isn't as good of an idea as it seems:

The largest thing to grapple with is that images are contextual. Choosing to select and share one is a highly intentional act, and oftentimes requires knowing the larger context of how it will be viewed.

(From: Thoughts on embedding alternative text metadata into images – Eric Bailey)

He explains describing images is a human to human thing, not a “problem” that just needs some tech thrown at it. Even if some of the tech can in some ways be helpful and powerful.

Touch screens and buttonless designs on devices have become the norm, not a definition of the ultra-modern any more. Which means, as a blind individual, that finding accessible household appliances has become increasingly challenging.

(From: Devising devices with accessibility in mind)

On Wednesday, Parliament approved the Artificial Intelligence Act that ensures safety and compliance with fundamental rights, while boosting innovation.

(…)

It aims to protect fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability from high-risk AI, while boosting innovation and establishing Europe as a leader in the field. The regulation establishes obligations for AI based on its potential risks and level of impact.

(From: Artificial Intelligence Act: MEPs adopt landmark law | News | European Parliament)

The W3C established articificial intelligence is having a “systemic impact on the web” and looked at how standardisation, guidelines and interoperability can help manage that:

Machine Learning models support a new generation of AI systems. These models are often trained on a large amount of Web content, deployed at scale through web interfaces, and can be used to generate plausible content at unprecedented speed and cost.

Given the scope and scale of these intersections, this wave of AI systems is having potential systemic impact on the Web and some of the equilibriums on which its ecosystem had grown.

This document reviews these intersections through their ethical, societal and technical impacts and highlights a number of areas where standardization, guidelines and interoperability could help manage these changes

(From: AI & the Web: Understanding and managing the impact of Machine Learning models on the Web)

All of this leaves me wanting simpler businesses with simpler motives — I'll pay, you provide a product or service commensurate with the value. No opaque policies, no concerns about data. I'd love for you to be profitable and sustainable, without being obsessed with scale. I'd love you to build products for the customers, not the speculators, that have invested in you.

(From: Of course AI is extractive, everything is lately • Cory Dransfeldt)

Sean Voisen recommends to not stick to a particular technology:

Lose the label and become T-shaped. Stay curious. Keep learning. Go deep in a specific technology or framework or programming language, but develop breadth in adjacent technologies that will help inform your work and develop new perspectives.

(From: On being a ‹insert favorite technology here› “guy” | Sean Voisen)

Coincidentally, Jonathan Snook posted similar advice this week, in Shifting identifies.

Jakob Nielsen wrote a post in which he states “the accessibility movement has been a miserable failure’ (his words) and claims that generative “AI” can somehow magically remove the need for accessibility research and testing.

Note, there's currently no evidence that what he proposes is desirable (by users) or possible (with the tech). It is, however, clear that testing with users and meeting WCAG is desirable and possible.

Léonie explains Nielsen needs to think again:

Nielsen thinks accessibility has failed.

Nielsen thinks that generative AI will make my experience better. Nielsen apparently doesn't realise that generative AI barely understands accessibility, never mind how to make accessible experiences for humans.

I think Nielsen needs to think again.

Matt May said we need to talk about Jakob:

This part of the post isn’t so much an argument on the merits of disabled access as it is a projection of himself in the shoes of a blind user, and how utterly miserable he thinks it would be. At no point in any of this—again, classic Jakob Nielsen style—does he cite an actual blind user, much less any blind assistive technology researchers or developers

Per Axbom wrote:

the published post is misleading, self-contradictory and underhanded. I'll walk you through the whole of it and provide my commentary and reasoning.

Researchers show that hallucination is inevitable:

LLMs cannot learn all of the computable functions and will therefore always hallucinate. Since the formal world is a part of the real world which is much more complicated, hallucinations are also inevitable for real world LLMs.

(From: [2401.11817] Hallucination is Inevitable: An Innate Limitation of Large Language Models)

Apple is experimenting with a new HTML form control: a switch (see WHATWG/HTML issue #9546). It is designed as an attribute for <input type="checkbox">, you'd turn a checkbox into a switch by adding the switch attribute:

<input type=checkbox switch checked>

In terms of pseudos:, they're experimenting with ::thumb and ::track pseudo elements for styling the parts of the switch. Unlike the checkbox, it has no ::indeterminate pseudo class, because it has no indeterminate state.

The colour can be set with accent-color. For browsers that don't support this new switch attribute, the element simply falls back to a checkbox.

There is some accessibility support: a switch gets a switch role under the hood, and the element respects the “differentiate without color“ setting in iOS and “on/off labels” on iOS.

Their blog post on when to use it:

Generally, we recommend using a switch when the end user understands the user interface element as a setting that is either “on” or “off”. A checkbox is well suited for when the end user would understand the element as something to be selected.

(From: An HTML Switch Control | WebKit)

On the work the GOV.UK Design System team do:

it’s the invisible systems work that has a bigger impact. Reviewing. Advising. Organising. Co-ordinating. Triaging. Educating. Supporting. Allowing the innovation happening at the edges of the ecosystem to feed back into the centre, to be consolidated and standardised for the benefit of everyone.

(From: How far we’ve come: What it would mean to lose the GOV.‌UK Design System)