Footer badge nudges accessibility

Old idea, still poking me: could a tiny badge in a footer nudge the web toward real accessibility? Badges shape norms. People see them, copy them. The trick is making the seal mean something users can feel, not just a sticker. ♿️ 👇

From my notes on May 18, 2017: while building Oswald Labs’ Agastya (our accessibility plugin), I sketched an Agastya Seal. A small footer badge (yes, the footer!) like the old “Validated by W3C” icons, but for access. A symbol of pride that we cared and tested.

2017 snapshot I remember:
• WCAG 2.0 was the anchor.
• Automated checks were basic.
• Overlays were just popping up.
• “Valid HTML” often meant “quality.”
A seal felt like a way to redirect badge culture toward inclusion.

Since then: tooling sharpened (axe-core, Lighthouse audits). Design systems ship keyboard patterns and ARIA. The community pushed back on overlay bandage fixes. WCAG 2.2 raised the floor and enforcement stepped up. Badges can slip into theater, so governance matters.

Today, a credible seal needs clear scope (WCAG 2.2 AA by task and component), independent audits and automated checks, expiry and versioning, CI monitoring, public known issue logs, a user report channel, and a transparent way to revoke.

Open questions for 2025:
• Who accredits the accreditors without conflicts?
• How do we show continuous conformance in fast moving apps, not snapshots?
• Should we weight by real task success with assistive tech?
Here’s the original note from 2017: https://github.com/AnandChowdhary/notes/blob/main/notes/2017/agastya-seal.md