Overlay ordered to pay up and a World Cup poster party (SBLTN Lab Notes 052)
U.S. F.T.C. hits AccessiBe with $1mil fine, free climate education centering People of the Global Majority, and posters from World Cup host cities
IN THE MARGINS
👋🏽 Welcome to the new peeps! Feel free to poke around the archive for past goodies.
ACCESSIBILITY
AccessiBe fined $1 million
The United States Federal Trade Commission approved a final consent order against accessiBe - an accessibility website plugin also known as an “overlay”. AccessiBe falsely claimed that their tool called accessWidget can make any website compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The order prohibits accessiBe from making misleading claims, such as the paid endorsements that were misrepresented as independent reviews, and requires the company to pay $1 million.
I’ve ranted about “overlays” before. They are sold as a silver-bullet that gives websites accessibility in one click and “set it and forget it” compliance. It's usually a floating button with settings like color contrast, pausing animations, and font sizes.
However, I think overlays suck because of what’s under the hood and that the companies pushing them aren’t being transparent.
These overlays often:
Don't work properly or create a frustrating experience for people with disabilities by overriding assistive tech
Fail to address key problems (missing alt text, keyboard navigation, ambiguous anchor text links, etc)
Act as a band-aid by skipping the root of the issue: code
Can cost businesses even more money to fix their website
Lock customers into a subscription in order to “remain compliant” with accessibility laws, when in fact using an accessibility overlay does NOT help avoid lawsuits and gives site owners a false sense of security
Word is getting out overlays may not be as magical as they claim.
Accessibility-In-Practice: Fast Food Drive-Thru
As a hard-of-hearing person, the speakers in fast food drive-thru always sound like garbled mess and sometimes they don’t have the digital screen that shows your order so you can see if they got it correct. As a result, I tend to use the indoor kiosk instead.
To my surprise, I saw a sign at a McDonald’s drive-thru that said “Customers with speech or hearing difficulties, please pull up to the next open window for assistance in ordering. Thank you.” I’m curious what happens at the next window and I’m sure I’ll get a McGriddle craving soon, so I’ll keep y’all posted 🍟
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
Open Edu: free and accessible climate education
Open Edu is a free and accessible climate education series that centers the voices and perspectives of People of the Global Majority. Open Edu teaches on multiple topics through 3 major lenses—human rights, climate justice and collective liberation.
“We believe that education is the foundation of progress, and that collectively we can cultivate the critical thinking to dismantle harmful systems.” -Open Edu
ART & DESIGN
FIFA World Cup posters for host cities are out!
When I’m not a frat bro watching ice hockey, I’m cheering for a football team (aka soccer, not U.S. handegg 🏈 lol). The United States is set to co-host the men’s FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2026 with Mexico and Canada - with each host city getting its own promotional poster.
This marks the first time FIFA has created official city-specific posters for a World Cup, with the intention of the designs reflecting the unique cultural and artistic spirit of each host city, while showcasing a shared love of the beautiful game. A different local artist designed each poster, except for the three representing the host cities in Mexico, which were all created by Mexican illustrator Cuemanche.
My personal faves are Guadalajara (for the vibrant colors), Houston for the cheeky astronaut, and Toronto for it’s geometric/abstract yet retro vibe. There’s 1 or 2 that look dialed in but I’m not gonna call them out haha
.
.
.
Signing off from the Starship SBLTN,
Laneen (Pronouns: she/they)
HEARD IN THE HALLWAYS
Call for Submissions: Video Art & Short Films for Rest Fest Film Festival (First deadline: July 20) - RestFest is a film and video art festival & online gathering space created by/for Disabled, Deaf, chronically ill, neurodivergent, mentally ill, and/or mad community, seeking narrative and documentary short films, and video art.
🎧 Listening: Some Of Us Are Brave - Danielle Ponder (album on Spotify)
👀 Watching: Jack Reacher (what a silly show that’s so easy and fun to watch)
💬 Quote: "The unknown is scary but the known is stifling" -Kelechi Okafor
✔️ Random Fact: In the United States the final commercial Morse code transmission was on July 12, 1999. As of 2015, the United States Air Force still trains ten people a year in Morse. (Source)
Nice to see you back!!! Just thinking about the drive through experience of ordering food (I also hate it but probably for ND reasons lol), but why isn’t drive through food ordering not like drive through banking. Why not just have a touch screen? Why does a person need to take the order??