Steve Faulkner

Web accessibility specialist and Director at TetraLogical

Steve Faulkner is a Director at TetraLogical and covers ARIA, HTML and accessibility topics for HTML5 Doctor. Since 2001 he has been working in accessibility, initially as a consultant then as a standards editor, technical writer, and a developer of accessibility testing tools.

A large portion of Steve’s work comes down to a simple question: what does the mark-up do? What would somebody who uses a screen reader encounter on a website or in an application?

Professional experience

Before becoming an accessibility specialist in 2001 at Vision Australia, Steve was a front-end developer in the 1990s. At Vision Australia he provided accessibility assessments and helped develop the Web Accessibility Toolbar and the original Windows Colour Contrast Analyser.

After leaving Vision Australia in 2006, he went to The Paciello Group. Between 2006 and 2023 at The Paciello Group (which later became TPGi), Steve had several positions including consultant, principal consultant, Director of the Knowledge Center and Chief Accessibility Officer. During this time he also represented TPGi in W3C work.

He joined TetraLogical as a Director in 2023. His professional history records these roles and related projects.

Web standards contributions

Steve’s editor credits include:

  • HTML5. He is listed among the editors of the October 2014 W3C Recommendation.
  • ARIA in HTML. He edited this specification until April 2023. The specification sets out requirements for using ARIA attributes with HTML.
  • HTML Accessibility API Mappings 1.0. He served as an editor until May 2023. In this role, he contributed to the document outlining how browsers provide access to HTML elements and attributes via platform accessibility APIs.
  • WCAG Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) 2.0. He is a co-editor of this W3C Group Note, published in July 2026. This note outlines a method for assessing whether a product meets WCAG 2.

Accessibility research and testing tools

Steve also creates and supports tools people can use to explore how different browsers and assistive technologies behave.

For instance, the screen reader HTML support tables aggregate information about JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, TalkBack and Narrator behaviour related to HTML support. The project includes HTML test files and an application for looking up support information. Developers can examine the examples themselves, compare their results and report discrepancies.

More recently, Steve created two new projects that target other testing challenges:

  • aViewer – Moderno is a free Windows tool for examining the accessibility API. It can display table relationships that may be difficult to inspect in a browser’s accessibility tree.
  • ARIA Testify is another open-source tool for Windows for checking live regions and accessibility notifications. Users can optionally install a browser add-on to help track where events were captured.

All three of these projects have public documentation and public source code. In addition to providing source code, Steve describes in his development blog how he used AI-based tools to create aViewer – Moderno.

Areas of expertise

  • Semantic HTML and accessible interface markup
  • ARIA roles, states and properties
  • Screen reader and browser interoperability
  • Accessibility APIs and platform mappings
  • Manual accessibility testing and evaluation
  • Technical documentation for web developers

Writing for HTML5 Doctor

Steve’s articles ask what developers can expect from the HTML they write. His subjects include heading structures, native semantics, ARIA and the difference between a proposed feature and one implemented in browsers.

His contributions include “Computer says NO to HTML5 document outline”, “Using ARIA in HTML” and “HTML Developers: Please Consider”. Browse his HTML5 Doctor article archive for the full collection.

Profile sources

This profile draws on Steve’s official TetraLogical biography, his own professional history, W3C editor credits and project documentation. Biographical sources checked on 23 October 2026.