This contrast checker uses a different calculation than the standard WCAG color contrast checker. It recognizes a difference between light text on a dark background and dark text on a light background. Sometimes color pairs that meet the WCAG can still be hard or tiring to read, and this calculator may be especially useful for those pairs.

Contrast Themes are an accessibility feature in Windows that overrides the default colors used to provide custom choices for better accessibility. This is beyond doing a light and dark theme, but a way for the user to adapt the app or website in a way that works for them. This article gives specific tips for better compatibility with Contrast Themes. For example, if the focus state would change background color but not outline, using a transparent outline instead of outline: none lets the Contrast Theme provide an outline in a user-selected color.

This article is a deep dive into accessible color choices for potential issues such as high contrast repeating stripes causing migraines or saturated red triggering seizures. This includes a list of color issues not regulated by standards but that may still cause problems (such as cultural differences in colors). h/t Kayleen Holt

A collection of free utility tools for instructional designers. I will definitely use the Caption Line Splitter, which rewraps captions based on the number of characters and lines. The collection includes other utilities for accessibility, QA, calculating development time, identifying which text will overflow when localized, and more.

Dr. Philippa Hardman explains her process for analyzing a workflow to determine how to redesign it to get more value out of AI.

This is a great example of a "show your work" post on what it takes to generate high-quality AI videos. The prompts to create the characters and scene and to generate the video clips are included. The amount of detail needed to prompt in Seedance is significant; the prompt for the first 30-second clip is 700 words long. Check the notes at the end about what failed and how he worked around the problems too.

If you've ever tried to generate an image with AI and asked for "no plants" in the office, only to get a bunch of plants in the image, you've seen how much trouble AI has with negative language. This video explains why negative words are hard for AI to understand.

Julie Dirksen explains the concept of psychological stamina. Even if you have the knowledge and skills to do a certain task, how long can you keep doing it? If the behavior requires vigilance over time, like watching for hazards on the road while driving, how long can you maintain that level of mental focus?

I've never personally had a need to do this, but I can see how this tool might be useful. If you have a video with burned in "open" captions, this AI video editing tool says it can remove the text. The pricing options include buying a credit pack, so if you only have an occasional need for this you can buy credits instead of adding yet another monthly subscription.

Midjourney's new editor is now available. You can prompt for edits with natural language, more like prompting edits in Nano Banana. This article includes a bunch of examples of editing prompts for changing the style of images, plus a few others like changing camera angle, character pose, and prompting layouts from sketches.

Can you identify which images are real and which ones are AI? I did terribly on this quiz the first time I tried: less than 50% right.

Josh Penzell created a calculator to help people compare the energy, water, and other environmental costs of using AI in comparison to streaming. One insight I had from this tool is that AI uses a lot more direct on-site water. That's probably where some of the really high numbers of AI water use come from. But when you look at the total operational water including the electricity use, then streaming uses more water than AI. All of the source data is provided so you can dig into it yourself.

A collection of hundreds of examples of images and prompts created with ChatGPT. Filter the list by category and style. The examples are sometimes uneven in quality; some of these have that very obviously ChatGPT look to them. But there are some creative ideas too, and it's helpful to see examples of prompts to see how to describe different visual styles and elements.

Tom McDowall reflects on how conferences serve different purposes depending on where you are in your career and what your professional goals are. Consider his questions when making choices about what's worth your time and money to attend. The biggest and most popular conference might not be right for you, depending on your goals.

Ross Stevenson explains how he uses Riverside's AI features for editing videos to avoid the tedious parts of editing and polishing.

Explanations of pricing structures (tiered per-seat licensing, fixed fee facilitation, site licensing, etc.) and guidelines on how to price your training courses.

This article by Garima Gupta has a lot of overlap with my own process for writing branching scenarios (e.g., asking questions to narrow down the specific behavior, identifying decision points first). I like her explanation of the "mental model" behind the choices to get more believable options.

Clients get anxious when they don't hear from you, even if you're working hard and making great progress. Proactive status updates reduce client stress and make you easier to work with. This is a great approach for L&D freelancers and consultants, and very similar to the structure I use for my own weekly updates to clients. I learned this lesson myself early in my freelancing career.

Wordineer has name generators organized by continent and country, primarily European and Asian names. You can generate first and last names and pick options like the type of surname and the meaning.

I'd run across this model before in business communication, but Jean Marrapodi brought it to my attention again recently. This is really a story framework for presentations or reports where you want to communicate information. It could work as an overarching pattern in an explainer video or training too. It's less suited to interactive stories or branching scenarios, but you could adapt it to work there too.

Clark Quinn reminded me of this article from 15 years ago about writing proposals to speak at conferences. Even though the article is older, the advice is evergreen, and it overlaps with some of the same key points I shared in my recent podcast interview on conference speaking. He also talks about titles and other aspects I didn't address.

While I feel fairly confident describing images in prompts, I know I have a ton more to learn about prompting for video, including for animation. This article gives examples of prompts in different animation styles. It's helpful to see both the repeated patterns in the prompt structure (starting with the medium, listing numbered shots, describing emotions) and the specific keywords to convey different styles.

A guide to different types of shots plus camera angles. This includes examples so you can see the difference (although they're not amazing AI-generated images, they still serve the purpose). The sample prompts give you examples of how to describe and ask for different results. There's also some tips on combining shot types and camera angles (like close up and low angle) for different effects.

As I work with AI images and video more, I find myself needing to learn more about camera angles--how to describe what I want and how to be more deliberate in my choices. This article about the psychology of camera angles and how they affect how the viewer feels about an image.

Knowing how many folks in my network are looking for work, I thought this list of tips for job seekers for posting on LinkedIn would be helpful.

Kayleen Holt describes six types of SMEs with tips on how to work productively with each one.

AI is getting better at lots of tasks. But even though we know we should rigorously verify AI outputs, we're less likely to do so when AI is generally better. If the AI does well 4 times in a row, you're not going to check the 5th time very closely. Julie Dirksen explains the psychology and gives examples.

This article is about teachers changing beliefs about instructional methods, but the points about psychology and learning apply broadly. Changing people's minds isn't just about providing good information, especially when those beliefs are tied to key values and identity.

Free stock photos showing authentic images of people with disabilities. This library includes suggested alt text for each image. (Thanks to Kayleen Holt for sharing this.)