Most arguments about accessibility are really arguments about defaults

Most arguments about accessibility are really arguments about defaults.

A component library offers forty ways to build a button. The team picks the one that looks right. Nobody checks the focus state, the contrast at small sizes, the screen-reader label — because the component didn't make them.

That's why we build highly opinionated components. Each one ships with exactly one right way to use it: focus indicators that can't be turned off, color pairs that pass contrast, labels the component requires rather than suggests. Flexibility is the enemy — every option is a chance to exclude someone.

This isn't a restriction on designers. It's the opposite. When the accessible choice is the default, designers stop spending energy on the basics and spend it on the experience.

Accessible procurement, accessible design systems, accessible teams — they're all the same idea: make the right thing the easy thing.

That's what we're striving for. One component at a time.

A Mahjongg Moment

Today, I am having a mahjongg moment.

Some days, I have an epiphany. I once had a Sunday school teacher explain an epiphany like this: we shut our eyes, then opened them — and he said it's like a light bulb turning on in the dark. Some of the best things in my life have been exactly like that.

My current car is one of them. It is not a car I would have called my dream car, or gone hunting for. It was serendipitous. I told friends and my husband most of my life: I will never drive a minivan.

Then one day after soccer, I looked at my husband and said, "Let's go look at cars. We don't need to buy anything — but we should keep an open mind." He suggested Kia. I had a certain kind of car in mind, and it was wrong — but I told him I'd keep an open mind.

We got there unimpressed. Then the showroom sales guy said he had one we should look at before we go. A Kia Carnival. They're rarely available — but one had just come in. We got in... and we were impressed. Eventually, we left with it.

I've had miraculous moments that were nothing short of God's intervention, at just the right time. This may seem silly, but I think we get nudged onto the right paths.

For years, I looked at mahjongg as too hard and not for me. But today my best friend invited me to a mahjongg bootcamp — and I would do a lot of things for our few moments a year of girls' time.

So here I am: having a mahjongg moment, in good spirits, keeping an open mind.

All Saints' Day

Today is All Saints' Day.

Halloween — All Hallows' Eve — is the eve of this holy day: a day of remembrance for the saints who have gone before us, who now see the light of our Lord face to face.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." — Hebrews 12:1

"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." — John 8:12

Don't put off following the Light. Our time here is short: "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am." — Psalm 39:4

Follow Him while there is still time.

Proverbs 16:3

Hand Him the whole day first, and the plans settle into place. — Proverbs 16:3

John 1:5

Darkness gets its say, but it doesn't win.