AAArdvark

AAArdvark AAArdvark helps teams make their websites accessible and compliant through automated testing, issue tracking, and expert accessibility consulting.

AAArdvark helps organizations make their websites accessible and compliant with ADA, Section 508, and WCAG standards. Our accessibility testing platform combines automated scans with visual issue tracking, collaboration tools, and expert audits to help teams find and fix accessibility barriers faster. We believe accessibility should be approachable, actionable, and integrated into every stage of digital design and development - not an afterthought.

08/05/2026

The most important document on your website might not be a web page.

It might be a PDF. The course catalog, the benefits summary, the permit application, the lab results, the annual report. The thing people came to your site to get.

And it usually doesn't get checked when someone tests the website for accessibility.

Here's what that means in practice. When a PDF hasn't been tagged, someone using a screen reader gets a wall of text with no structure. There are no headings to jump between. There's no set reading order, so a two-column page can come out with the columns mixed together. Tables lose the header row, so the numbers arrive without the labels that made them mean anything. Images have no description, and form fields have no labels.

The document opens just fine. It simply can't be used.

So we're building PDF accessibility scanning into AAArdvark. Every PDF you add gets checked against PDF/UA, the accessibility standard for PDF documents. Each failed check becomes a real issue you can filter, assign, and track next to everything else on the site, and your dashboard shows how many of your documents pass, not just how many of your pages do.

Coming soon.

What's sitting in your document library, what you've had to fix by hand, what you gave up on. We'd love your thoughts.

Today is the last day.Enrollment for this cohort of the AAArdvark Circle closes tonight, July 31. After that, the doors ...
07/31/2026

Today is the last day.

Enrollment for this cohort of the AAArdvark Circle closes tonight, July 31. After that, the doors stay closed until we open the next group.

If you've been on the fence, here's a member, Graham, on what the Circle actually feels like from the inside:

"Natalie brings a gentle, generous presence to the Circle, sharing deep accessibility knowledge while listening with care. Her kind and supportive approach creates a safe space to learn, ask questions, and grow with confidence."

That's the room we've built. A place where you can ask the question you're a little embarrassed not to know the answer to, and get a real, kind, useful response.

For $549 a year, locked in for life, members get a focused mastermind every month, an open Q&A, a library of practical lessons, templates and pricing guides, and 20% off their AAArdvark subscription.

The next cohort kicks off August 7. Join before the day is out: https://bit.ly/4aAAoVn

[Image description: A quote graphic on a dark navy background. Large quotation marks frame the text "Natalie brings a gentle, generous presence to the Circle, sharing deep accessibility knowledge while listening with care. Her kind and supportive approach creates a safe space to learn, ask questions, and grow with confidence." Below it is a small photo of Graham Venning and the label "Graham Venning, Founder and CEO of Desert Wing Design, LLC." The AAArdvark logo and the URL https://bit.ly/4aAAoVn appear at the bottom.]

07/29/2026

Everyone is suddenly adding alt text to their images. Marketers are doing it because they heard it helps them show up in AI tools. And sure, a good description never hurts. But here is the thing accessibility people have known all along: alt text was always for humans first, and writing it well is more of an art than a checkbox.

The hard part was never adding the alt attribute. The hard part is deciding what to write. And the answer depends entirely on why the image is on the page. The exact same photo can need five completely different descriptions, or none at all, depending on the context around it.

In this hands-on workshop we will look at real images together and figure out the right alt text for each one. Bring your guesses to the chat. We will cover:

• Why context beats description, with real before-and-after examples
• When an image is decorative and should have empty alt text on purpose
• The most common alt text mistakes, and simple fixes
• What AI alt text generators get right, and the one thing they consistently miss
• A quick look at the code for captions and complex images, for the developers in the room

We will also run a live scan to see how a tool catches missing alt text, and where the judgment call is still yours to make.

This is for developers, designers, content creators, and anyone who publishes images on the web. You do not need to be an accessibility expert to follow along.

07/29/2026

Everyone is suddenly adding alt text to their images, a lot of them because they heard it helps their content show up in AI tools.

A good description never hurts. But alt text was always for people first, and writing it well is more art than checkbox.

Join Natalie live today at 1pm Pacific for a hands-on alt text workshop. She'll put real images up, take your guesses in the chat, and reveal the context twist for each one.

Here's what we'll cover:

• Why context beats description, with real before-and-after examples
• When an image is decorative and should have empty alt text on purpose
• The most common alt text mistakes, and the simple fixes
• What AI alt text generators get right, and the one thing they consistently miss
• A quick look at the code for captions and complex images, for the developers

It's for developers, designers, content creators, and anyone who publishes images on the web. You don't need to be an accessibility expert to follow along.

Bring your questions. We'll leave time at the end.

Join us live: https://bit.ly/4yZJN2L

07/25/2026

Ask an AI coding assistant to fix an accessibility issue, and it will often hand you a confident, wrong answer.

That's the gap we've been working on. Tools like Claude Code and Cursor are genuinely good at writing code, but accessibility is where they get shaky. They'll invent an ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attribute, misuse a role, or "fix" something in a way that quietly breaks it for real users.

So we built a new way for your AI coding assistant to talk directly to AAArdvark, right from inside your code editor. It uses a standard called MCP (Model Context Protocol), and once it's connected, your assistant can:

• Scan a site and pull back the real accessibility issues
• Get authoritative WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) fix guidance for each one, not a guess
• Mark issues fixed, assign them, or leave a comment
• Re-scan to confirm the fix actually worked

No more copying selectors and instructions out of a dashboard by hand. Your assistant works from the same guidance our platform gives you, so the fix it writes is grounded in the actual standard, and a real person can use the result.

It's in private beta right now, and we're opening up a few more spots. If you work with an AI coding assistant and you want to close the gap between finding an accessibility issue and actually fixing it, we'd love to have you test it.

Request access here: https://bit.ly/4fxglZ0

The hardest accessibility questions are the specific ones.Not "what is WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)" - yo...
07/22/2026

The hardest accessibility questions are the specific ones.

Not "what is WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)" - you can look that up. The ones that actually stop you are narrower. Why is this exact table getting flagged? How do you test this one strange widget? Is this pattern good enough to ship, or are you about to break it for someone? Those don't have a blog post waiting for them.

That's what the AAArdvark Circle is for. It's a small group of working professionals - testers, agency owners, consultants, and developers - who meet with our co-founder Natalie every month to work through real accessibility problems together.

Here's how it works. On the first Friday of each month, Natalie hosts a mastermind on one focused topic. On the third Thursday, we hold open office hours, where you bring whatever you're stuck on and get a real answer.

A few of the masterminds we've worked through recently:

• Using AI in accessibility work without breaking it
• Building a manual testing methodology that actually scales
• Keyboard testing beyond Tab and click
• Accessible forms: labels, errors, and instructions that work
• Prioritizing your fixes after an audit

Every member also gets the full library of past recordings and slides to work through anytime.

The new cohort starts August 7, and enrollment is open through July 31. It's $549 a year, and that rate is locked in for life for as long as you stay a member.

The Circle is small on purpose. If you've been missing a place to ask the specific thing you're stuck on, come join us.

https://bit.ly/4aAAoVn

[Image description: AAArdvark circle. New cohort starts August 7th, enroll through July 31st. With a small rosette-style design with the AAArdvark favicon.]

07/15/2026

A scanner can flag accessibility issues in seconds. Fixing them correctly is where most teams get stuck.

The deeper issues a scanner misses take a skilled person to find at all. But finding, by scan or by hand, is only half the job. Someone still has to fix what turns up, and that is where the work stalls, especially when accessibility is not your specialty.

So today, we are running an experiment, live.

Natalie points an AI agent at a small, deliberately broken website and gives it real accessibility context through the AAArdvark MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which lets the AI pull findings and fix guidance straight from AAArdvark. Then we deploy the fixes and rescan, live, to confirm the fixes actually worked.

Here is what you will see:

• A real scan, and an AI agent proposing code fixes from the findings
• The deploy and rescan loop, so fixes get verified in real time
• The AI fixing an issue a scanner could never catch, one a human found by testing
• Where AI does great work fast, and where a human needs to stay in the loop

This one is for developers, agencies, and anyone curious about where AI genuinely helps with accessibility and where it does not. You do not need to be an expert to follow along.

Today at 1pm Pacific. We will also share how to get early access to the AAArdvark MCP server, which is currently in private beta.

https://bit.ly/4vxbcpD

Accessibility work can be isolating. Often you're the only person on your team who cares about it, and when you hit a tr...
07/13/2026

Accessibility work can be isolating. Often you're the only person on your team who cares about it, and when you hit a tricky problem, there's no one to ask.

The AAArdvark Circle was built to fix that. It's a small membership community for people who care about getting accessibility right. Every month, members get two live sessions with our co-founder Natalie MacLees: a mastermind on one focused topic, and an open Q&A where you can bring whatever you're working on and get real answers.

Recent masterminds have covered building a manual testing methodology that scales, keyboard testing beyond Tab and click, accessible forms that actually work, and how to prioritize fixes after an audit.

One member, Graham Venning of Desert Wing Design, put it this way: "Natalie brings a gentle, generous presence to the Circle, sharing deep accessibility knowledge while listening with care. Her kind and supportive approach creates a safe space to learn, ask questions, and grow with confidence."

A new cohort starts August 7, and enrollment is open through July 31. Membership is $549 a year, and joining this cohort locks in that rate for as long as you stay a member.

If you've been doing this work on your own, come join us.

https://bit.ly/4aAAoVn

07/08/2026

This Friday, the AAArdvark Circle is digging into one of the most useful and most misunderstood tools in accessibility work right now: AI.

The July 10 mastermind is called Using AI in Accessibility Work (Without Breaking It). Here's the heart of it:

AI is a brilliant assistant and a terrible author. It's great for a first draft, whether that's explaining a finding, drafting captions or alt text, or suggesting a code fix. But it never finishes the job, because it reasons about a page it has never actually used. The skill is knowing exactly where your own hands have to take over.

If you've been thinking about joining the Circle, this is the week. Join before Friday and you'll be in the room for this session live, even though the new cohort doesn't officially start until August 7. Enrollment stays open through July 31, so you're welcome after Friday too. You'd just catch this one on the recording.

The rate is $549 a year, locked in for life.

Join us: https://a20y.com/circle

A11y Tip of the Week: The most accessible skip link is one everybody can see.A skip link lets keyboard and screen reader...
07/08/2026

A11y Tip of the Week: The most accessible skip link is one everybody can see.

A skip link lets keyboard and screen reader users jump straight to the main content instead of tabbing through the whole navigation on every page. There's a simple hierarchy for building one well.

The best option is to make it always visible - a small link in the top-left corner that never hides. If your designer or client is open to it, this is the ideal. Nothing is hidden, nothing catches anyone off guard, and sighted keyboard users benefit too.

When an always-visible link isn't possible, the next best thing is a link that stays hidden until it receives keyboard focus, then appears. In 2026, the clean way to do that is with clip-path, not the old off-screen positioning tricks. You hide the link with clip-path set to inset 50 percent, then clear it on focus so it pops into the corner. Approaches that shove the link off-screen with negative positioning or a 9999-pixel offset are clunkier and can trip up screen readers.

One gotcha either way: make the target focusable. Point the link at the main element and give that element tabindex of -1. Otherwise the page scrolls but keyboard focus stays stuck at the top.

Here's a quick test anyone can run: load a page and press Tab. The skip link should appear, or already be visible. Press Enter, then Tab again - focus should land in the main content.

This is WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.4.1, Bypass Blocks. Sample CSS is in the image.

[Image description: A code snippet titled "A skip link that's hidden until focus." It shows a link reading "Skip to main content" that points to an element with the id main, and a main element with the id main and tabindex set to -1. The CSS places the skip link in the top-left corner with a white background and dark text, hides it using clip-path set to inset 50 percent, and reveals it by setting clip-path to none when it receives focus.]

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