Notes # 15: WAI Town Hall, Screen-Free Policy, GitHub Accessibility Plan...

Personal Notes

At Turkish Technology, one of our responsibilities is ensuring the accessibility of AJet digital touchpoints. We have made significant progress over the last year and made the mobile apps and website accessible for all. However, most probably, only users with disabilities are aware of what we did and what we are doing — until this week. This week’s web deployment brought our accessibility page live. This is a significant step for us because now everyone can read about what we are aiming to do and what we have done. Accessibility is not an isolated field, and everyone should know what it is. The world will be saved when we mainstream inclusion and spread the discussion in every room.

To learn more about the page, you can read the “In Detail” section below.

News

W3C WAI 2026 Update Town Hall

Source: Knowbility - YouTube

At the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Town Hall event, the 2026 updates were discussed. The areas currently being worked on were explained. Assertions are one of these areas. Cognitive accessibility standards such as plain language in WCAG 2 standards cannot currently be tested in a pass/fail status. Therefore, a model is being developed for WCAG 3 that allows organizations to “assert” the work that is not testable. Since no one is aiming to reach the AAA conformance level, improving the conformance model and helping organizations advance their accessibility work are also among the efforts within the scope of WCAG 3. There are also other ongoing efforts outside of WCAG 3. Work has begun on updating the ATAG standards, which cover the accessibility of social media platforms and content creation platforms such as CMS services etc. The goal is to increase the awareness and adoption of these standards. It is possible to join the community group and provide feedback on development of new ATAG standards.

Screens Are Leaving Schools Fast, Though Some Students With Disabilities Rely On Them

Source: NPR

In the US, “more than 30 states have banned cellphones in schools. Some states have gone further with proposals or policies to entirely remove screens, such as laptops and tablets, from classrooms.” Screens are being blamed for distracting students and for having negative impacts on health. On the other hand, screens are accessibility needs for students with disabilities. A partially-sighted student can read the notes on the board using the zoom function on their mobile phone, a dyslexic student can use text-to-speech technologies to read long articles, and a blind student can take notes with the help of a screen reader. Advocates are stating that with this screen backlash and regulatory practices, students with disabilities are being left behind.

Building GitHub’s Next Chapter In Accessibility

Source: GitHub

On this Global Accessibility Awareness Day, GitHub didn’t share an inspirational video, didn’t make a huge commitment that won’t be fulfilled, and didn’t give strong messages. Instead, they shared a blog article to highlight their progress on their accessibility plan—in its fifth year—and to show concrete examples. This action-oriented approach is what we want. In the strategy, you can see many good steps for not only mainstreaming accessibility in development projects, but also implementing accessibility enhancements for developers with disabilities.

Inspirations

The Faces Age Verification Cannot Read

Source: Access Ability

“Half of U.S. states now require online age verification,” and the face verification trend is becoming more widespread in more than 30 countries around the world. However, verification systems do not accurately recognize the faces of persons with disabilities. People with down syndrome, dwarfism, or adults whose appearance was altered by childhood cancer treatment, growth hormone therapy, facial reconstruction, or endocrine conditions that delayed development may be read as minors. Also, wheelchair users and blind people can experience challenges reaching or centering the webcam to use the system. Sheri Byrne-Haber (disabled) recommends that face verification should not be the only way to verify, and the alternative path must be as accessible as the primary path.

The Ideal Viewport Doesn’t Exist

Source: Set Studio

Set Studio conducted an experiment to answer “how fragmented are viewport sizes?”. They gathered over 120,000 datapoints with over 2,300 unique viewport sizes. That means “If you tend to build with very specific breakpoints and hard values for typography, sizing and spacing, you might find that even with the best intentions, you’re not providing the optimal user experience. So, create flexible rules and allow the browser to do what it does best: calculate the best outcome based on the conditions it finds itself in.”

How Blindness Led Me To Cybersecurity — And To Securing Accessibility Itself

Source: Hackernoon

A story of a blind cybersecurity professional. Juan Mathews Rebello Santos identified and reported a cybersecurity vulnerability involving NVDA, and he mentioned, “If accessibility tools become insecure, millions of disabled people become vulnerable.” He is also working to make the security field inclusive for all, such as by creating authentication systems that do not rely entirely on visual interaction. He is also creating cybersecurity resources in Portuguese for students in Brazil and is writing a book for ordinary people who are not knowledgeable about cybersecurity. This is why being inclusive in the field of technology is so important. A blind person thinks about creating a link between assistive technologies and cybersecurity. He is also facilitating learning, perhaps inspired by the challenges he has experienced.

In Detail: What We Considered While Creating AJet’s Accessibility Page?

Read this article on its own page

While creating content for the AJet accessibility page, we reviewed a large number of accessibility statements. Creating a page that is both comprehensive and easy to read, and that appeals to everyone, took us some time. It was a process involving different teams. Below, I list what we aimed for and what we learned. Also, if you would like to review the page, here is the link: https://ajet.com/en/corporate/accessibility

• Concrete Information: When creating an accessibility statement, you are required to provide some information. The standard complied, the accessibility testing method and frequency, and contact information must be stated. We also tried to present this information in detail with clear headings. In the sections where we mention WCAG, we also included some explanations regarding the WCAG itself.
• Explaining “Why”: At its core, accessibility is about user experience and is more than a compliance matter. Therefore, we thought it would be meaningful to include our motivation alongside the technical information in our accessibility statement. We wanted to demonstrate our openness to communication by explaining why AJet works on accessibility and what it aims to achieve.
• User-Friendly Design: We noticed that most accessibility statement pages consist of plain text. This page should not be a dead and boring corner somewhere on the website. For this reason, together with our design team, we wanted to create a well-designed page supported by visuals and organized with clear headings. After all, our goal is for this page to be read by everyone.
• FAQ on Digital Experiences: Disability-related information is generally fragmented across airline websites. This is still a challenge we are working to address, and our efforts to make it easier continue. However, for now, we have also added questions about potential issues that may be encountered in digital channels to the accessibility page. Digital accessibility encompasses not only technical compliance but also how information is presented.