Welcome to another edition of the FEDSA Feed!
This edition covers a pretty wide stretch of the internet: the tiny details that make interfaces more usable, a new CMS taking direct aim at WordPress, and a much bigger question about whether the open web still gets to stay open. Light reading, obviously.
In her article Making Emojis and Icons Screen Reader Accessible, Elle Smith explores how emojis and icons, despite appearing as images to sighted users, often aren't true images in code, requiring specific strategies to ensure assistive technology users can access them. Smith breaks down the difference between emojis and emoticons, highlights why text alternatives matter, and covers practical approaches for making both emojis and icons screen reader-friendly, including considerations for social media contexts.
Check it out here
Cloudflare just dropped something spicy: after rebuilding Next.js in a week using AI coding agents, they've turned their sights on WordPress itself. In a new post introducing EmDash, they describe it as the spiritual successor to the CMS powering 40% of the internet, rebuilt from the ground up in TypeScript and powered by Astro. The big headline feature is sandboxed plugins via Dynamic Workers, finally tackling the longstanding security headache of the WordPress plugin architecture. It's serverless, open source, MIT licensed, and available on GitHub right now.
Read all about it here
Anil Dash sounds the alarm on what he calls the existential endgame for the open web, cataloguing a wave of attacks from AI scraping and traffic destruction to the undermining of open source, Wikipedia, and podcasting. His message: 2026 is the year it gets decided, so support the Internet Archive, Wikipedia, the EFF, and Mozilla while there's still time.
Read the full post here
Inclusion in Tech: The Gap Between Intent and Reality
by Ayesha Bagus
Inclusion in tech, especially within software teams, shapes more than culture. It influences what gets built, how products function, and who they serve.
For many organisations, there’s still a noticeable gap between the intent to improve inclusion in tech and the lived experience within teams. Bridging that gap calls for a shift in how systems, decisions, and behaviours are shaped over time.
Ayesha Bagus, Head of People and HR Director at KRS, shares her thoughts on building inclusive software teams, the gap between intent and reality, and why this gap directly impacts the quality of what teams build.
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