https://tink.uk Léonie Watson's personal website. Writing about the web, accessibility, and other things. en-GB Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://tink.uk/accessibility-is-resistance/ https://tink.uk/accessibility-is-resistance/ Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Hello, my name is Léonie, and I 💜 AI. Well, that isn't entirely true, but I do use AI, quite a bit actually, and I'd like to tell you why. https://tink.uk/tag-youre-it/ https://tink.uk/tag-youre-it/ Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Adrian Roselli tagged me in his post back in March, and it's taken me until now to get round to answering his blogging questions! https://tink.uk/sticky-pork-belly-slices/ https://tink.uk/sticky-pork-belly-slices/ Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson I've got a recipe for sticky pork belly slices that you can make as sweet and sticky as you like, or turn up the heat with chilli if that's your preference. https://tink.uk/using-ray-ban-meta-glasses/ https://tink.uk/using-ray-ban-meta-glasses/ Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson I wrote about wearable AI tech for blind people back in 2020 when I bought the Envision Glasses, but they never became part of my everyday routine. I've had Ray-Ban Meta Glasses for a few months now, and they've already become part of my daily life. https://tink.uk/slow-cooker-french-onion-soup-with-cheese-toasts/ https://tink.uk/slow-cooker-french-onion-soup-with-cheese-toasts/ Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Making French onion soup can be a faff, but if you're not in a hurry, you can use a slow cooker to make it instead—it takes just 15 minutes prep and 8.5 hours in the cooker. https://tink.uk/stranger-things-the-first-shadow-with-audio-description-ad/ https://tink.uk/stranger-things-the-first-shadow-with-audio-description-ad/ Sun, 25 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Last Sunday I went to see Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix theatre in London and what really made my day was that it was a performance with live Audio Description (AD) and a touch tour beforehand. https://tink.uk/nielsen-needs-to-think-again/ https://tink.uk/nielsen-needs-to-think-again/ Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Jakob Nielsen reckons accessibility has failed, but as I go about my day using various accessible online services, I'm not convinced he's right about that. https://tink.uk/adventures-with-bemyai/ https://tink.uk/adventures-with-bemyai/ Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson I was given early access to BeMyAI, a new feature being added to the BeMyEyes iOS app using ChatGPT4, which lets you ask questions about photos instead of relying on sighted volunteers. https://tink.uk/addressing-concerns-about-css-speech/ https://tink.uk/addressing-concerns-about-css-speech/ Sat, 26 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson The case for CSS Speech isn't just about screen readers, but concerns about websites taking over your screen reader and making content less accessible are worth examining carefully. https://tink.uk/why-we-need-css-speech/ https://tink.uk/why-we-need-css-speech/ Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Whilst almost every device can talk to you now, there's currently no way for web authors to design the aural presentation of content the way they can the visual — but CSS Speech could change that. https://tink.uk/perceived-affordances-and-the-functionality-mismatch/ https://tink.uk/perceived-affordances-and-the-functionality-mismatch/ Thu, 14 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Styling one element to look like another creates a mismatch between the actions people expect to take and the ones they actually can, highlighting the essential problem with this common pattern. https://tink.uk/thoughts-on-skin-tone-and-text-descriptions/ https://tink.uk/thoughts-on-skin-tone-and-text-descriptions/ Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Jake Archibald asked whether skin tone should be mentioned in alt text, and as a blind person I've asked myself the same thing, so his post has prompted me to think out loud about how we normalise diversity for people who cannot see. https://tink.uk/patrick-h-laukes-goulash/ https://tink.uk/patrick-h-laukes-goulash/ Fri, 03 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson I'm bringing together food and technology again with this fifteenth post in the series, featuring a meltingly good goulash recipe from Patrick H. Lauke of the web standards community. https://tink.uk/notes-on-synthetic-speech/ https://tink.uk/notes-on-synthetic-speech/ Sun, 12 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson I've been thinking about conversational interfaces and the importance of voice quality in user experience, particularly as a screen reader user who's been listening to the same synthetic voice for about 20 years. https://tink.uk/accessibe-and-data-protection/ https://tink.uk/accessibe-and-data-protection/ Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson The case against accessibility overlays is well established, but AccessiBe's privacy practices deserve closer scrutiny—particularly how it tracks your browsing activity and personal data across websites. https://tink.uk/thoughts-on-screen-readers-and-image-recognition/ https://tink.uk/thoughts-on-screen-readers-and-image-recognition/ Sat, 02 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Text alternatives for images have been an accessibility first principle since 1999, but over 30% of homepage images are still missing descriptions, leaving blind users unable to see or use that content. https://tink.uk/playing-with-envision-glasses/ https://tink.uk/playing-with-envision-glasses/ Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson Vision accounts for most of our brain's electrical activity, but AI apps like Microsoft's SeeingAI have only partially solved the problem for blind people — you still have to point your phone at what you want to see, which is inconvenient and socially awkward. https://tink.uk/everybody-be-coil-you-be-coil/ https://tink.uk/everybody-be-coil-you-be-coil/ Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson I've decided to monetize this website using Web Monetization and become a Coil member because I've had enough of intrusive online advertising, tracking, and having my personal information bought and sold across the web. https://tink.uk/how-screen-readers-navigate-data-tables/ https://tink.uk/how-screen-readers-navigate-data-tables/ Mon, 28 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson When a table is created with appropriate HTML elements or ARIA roles, screen readers can inform users about table characteristics and provide keyboard commands for navigating tabular content. https://tink.uk/the-difference-between-aria-label-and-aria-labelledby/ https://tink.uk/the-difference-between-aria-label-and-aria-labelledby/ Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Léonie Watson aria-label and aria-labelledby do the same job but in different ways, and it's easy to confuse them with unintended results. This post explains the differences and how to choose the right one.