Deceptive Patterns and FAST

Deceptive patterns (also widely known as “dark patterns”) are all over the Web. I’ll speak to the accessibility impact deceptive patterns and “dark” patterns have accessibility-wise, inclusively, moving away from using “dark” patterns as vernacular, and my introduction to taking these patterns and my work in the W3C to have these published in WCAG3.

There is a lot of work being done in the Functional Needs group of the W3C to introduce these to FAST. I’ll talk about FAST, what it means to accessibility, and to users, developers, designers, and everyone in-between in the organization.

I’ll also introduce people to the Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies (FAST) which advises creators of technical specifications on ensuring their technology meets the needs of users with disabilities.

It primarily addresses web content technologies but also relates to any technology that affects web content sent to users, including client-side APIs, transmission protocols, and interchange formats.

Specifications that implement these guidelines make it possible for content authors and user agents to render the content in an accessible manner to people with a wide range of abilities.