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In More than words | Rachel Andrew, Rachel, easily one of the web dev industry's best writers and teachers, makes an interesting point on writing:

The majority of the time I spend writing a tutorial, isn’t spent writing.

Rather than writing, it is spent asking questions to try and understand what to write:

Before I put words on a page I need to understand the subject—the feature or product—well enough that I can explain it to someone else. Then I need to understand the audience. I’ll ask questions about who the ideal reader is, what they already know, and what problems they have that this product will solve.

And that process isn't optional, it is most of the job, and it helps with what not to write too:

Knowing what to leave out is as important as understanding what to explain.

On AI generated code contributions:

This kind of contribution to your favorite open-source project may feel to you like “free as in beer” and “free as in speech” but to us it is like being handed a “free puppy”: well intended, but accepting it has big consequences for years to come.

(From: Maintaining the love for coding in the time of AI)

AGWG chairs published a note on the latest WCAG 3 draft, that came out this week: WCAG 3 - New Draft)

The EN 301 549 adoption map shows where it is used, which includes many places outside Europe.

Version 4.1.0 (PDF link) of EN 301 549, the European standard used for WAD and from this version onwards also EAA conformance, was “adopted” by EU Member States.

(Source: ETSI timetable towards EN 301 549 publication)

There's lots of changes, the most significant for web teams:

• references to WCAG are now to WCAG 2.2.
• the “User Preferences” requirement has been reworded and spread out over 9.7, 10.7 and 11.7 (instead of just 11.7)
• authoring tools requirement in clause 11 moved to clause 5, and was made more specific. I also sneaked in examples in the authoring tool definition (my most tangible contribution lol).
• adds an EAA mapping in addition to the existing WAD mapping, so that it can be referred to as the standard to use to comply with EAA requirements, as soon as the European Journal refers to it for that purpose.

From 2 August, EU regulation around labeling AI generated content goes into effect.

Providers of AI generated content can label it however they want, but to make to it easier to know if you did enough, the Commission facilitated the production of a Code of Practice, that includes icons that can be use.

The Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content:

provides an EU-wide recognised practical framework for signatories to demonstrate compliance with those obligations

(From: Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content | Shaping Europe’s digital future)

There's a new release of the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG))

Updates include:

• New Impact Measurement + Impact API.
• Lots of small tweaks following peer review: we had at least 2 people look at each success criterion, consolidated and removed some (eg UX went from 21 to 17, web development from 20 to 16).
• Improved tone of voice and readability throughout, new introduction and “web sustainability” definition.

(Full changelog)

The new definition:

An approach to designing, developing, and operating digital products and services that leads to a web that is as clean, efficient, open, honest, regenerative and resilient as possible.

From the updated intro:

Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) provide actionable recommendations to help digital teams make informed, sustainable decisions. In considering different aspects of work and the web, these guidelines address the planet, people, and prosperity (PPP) impacts of digital products and services. They are interdisciplinary and cover artificial intelligence and emerging web technologies.

Dr. John Bistline, Head of Science at Watershed:

We're releasing an open framework to give companies a defensible starting point and a path toward increasingly precise AI emissions measurement as data availability improves.

(From: An open framework for AI emissions measurement – Watershed)

LOL:

The EUIPO found that the word “open” would be understood by the relevant public as meaning freely accessible, while the combination with “AI” (artificial intelligence) would be interpreted as referring to products based on openly accessible artificial intelligence

(From: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court - Europe)

I blogged on the W3C site about the meetup we organised when the AB was in Rotterdam: CSS animations, human rights, and big accessibility at the AB Web Meetup | 2026 | Blog | W3C