Léonie Watson

1. Accessibility is resistance!

   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.

   Published Mon, Jul 13, 2026

2. Tag, you're it

   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!

   Published Sun, Jun 15, 2025

3. Sticky pork belly slices

   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.

   Published Tue, Jun 10, 2025

4. Using Ray-Ban Meta glasses

   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.

   Published Sun, Jun 1, 2025

5. Slow cooker French onion soup with cheese toasts

   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.

   Published Fri, Nov 22, 2024

6. Stranger Things The First Shadow with audio description (AD)

   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.

   Published Sun, Aug 25, 2024

7. Nielsen needs to think again

   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.

   Published Thu, Mar 7, 2024

8. Adventures with BeMyAI

   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.

   Published Thu, Aug 17, 2023

9. Addressing concerns about CSS Speech

   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.

   Published Sat, Nov 26, 2022

10. Why we need CSS Speech

    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.

    Published Tue, Oct 18, 2022

11. Perceived affordances and the functionality mismatch

    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.

    Published Thu, Jul 14, 2022

12. Thoughts on skin tone and text descriptions

    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.

    Published Wed, Dec 15, 2021

13. Patrick H. Lauke's goulash

    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.

    Published Fri, Dec 3, 2021

14. Notes on synthetic speech

    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.

    Published Sun, Sep 12, 2021

15. AccessiBe and data protection?

    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.

    Published Tue, Jul 27, 2021

16. Thoughts on screen readers and image recognition

    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.

    Published Sat, Jan 2, 2021

17. Playing with Envision Glasses

    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.

    Published Thu, Nov 5, 2020

18. Everybody be Coil. You... Be Coil

    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.

    Published Sat, Oct 31, 2020

19. How screen readers navigate data tables

    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.

    Published Mon, Sep 28, 2020

20. The difference between aria-label and aria-labelledby

    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.

    Published Mon, Aug 24, 2020