I'm currently in the planning stages for my content for 2026.
There are a few things I want to change based on feedback I got from readers. I also think some things didn't quite work. Or I've gotten quite tired of writing them and they no longer bring me any joy. Not joy in that ridiculous Marie Condo way. Just a smile on my face and an itch in my keyboard fingers.
I haven't finished fleshing out everything yet.
But as I was planning, I was reminded of the dangers of it. And this is something I've seen many do.
We plan and plan and plan. And if we're not careful, which we rarely are, we'll plan ourselves out of accessibility every time. Here's what I mean.
Planning becomes this safe space where everything feels possible. We sketch out ambitious features. We outline complex frameworks. It all looks gorgeous on paper.
And somewhere in all that planning, accessibility becomes something we'll "add later." It becomes an item on a checklist.
For example. Google planned to make carousels with just CSS a reality. I can't imagine who wanted carousels, but here we are. Through all their planning and their implementation, they ignored accessibility. Then they got feedback. And still they ignored it. All that planning went nowhere.
I like to believe none of it was intentional. They weren't trying to exclude anyone. But that's the thing about planning without accessibility from the beginning. Exclusion is the default outcome.
And I've seen product teams do this over and over. Hell, I've done it myself. We plan ourselves into corners where being accessible would mean abandoning months of work. So we ship it anyway and tell ourselves most users won't notice.
But millions of people do notice. It's we who don't notice when they leave.
Anyway, back to my content plan.