Digital Accessibility News

"Accessibility" in the digital space means that digital platforms, like websites, mobile apps, social channels and PDFs, should be readable, operable and functional to all users - especially people with disabilities. It’s an issue that is rapidly gaining attention in many spheres, including social, economic and legal domains. Accessibility is part of diversity and inclusion conversations, it’s on the legal agenda in the US, the...

For vision-impaired voters in Virginia, there was no easy way to vote. They would either have to risk their health to vote in person or forgo voter privacy by asking someone to fill in the blanks on their mail-in ballot forms. “You pretty much had to decide whether you wanted to vote independently or safely. You couldn’t do both things,” said Colleen Miller, director of...

With a week to go before the state primary election, New Hampshire is launching a new absentee voting system meant to allow more voters to cast a ballot privately and independently. Until now, New Hampshire did not allow those who are blind or experience other print disabilities to request or complete an absentee ballot without assistance. Accessible voting options are provided at all New Hampshire...

Although some websites are mostly compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), researchers with Miami Lighthouse for the Blind found that many major pharmacy chains’ websites are not fully accessible to patients with blindness or other vision impairments. Many blind patients use screen-reading software, but in order for that to work, websites need to have some built-in capabilities, such as alternative text on images,...

Web accessibility is an on-going legal and ethical commitment and therefore must form a part all companies thinking in the development of new technology in the online world. To achieve and effectively manage this commitment, developers should look to consider accessibility from the outset and to design new technologies with accessibility as a fundamental consideration....

Back in the early days of the internet, when having a computer at home usually meant a single room with a bulky desktop tower, web accessibility was barely a thought for those in the IT industry, let alone an afterthought. As the early 2000s wore on, third party software manufacturers began to develop bespoke desktop access solutions, often at a hefty mark-up. The “Mobile First”...

When the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was passed to prohibit employment discrimination based on disability, it was supposed to protect disabled people and ensure their rights in the United States. “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States,” Section 504 of that law reads, “shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the...

Gabriel Guimaraes grew up in Vitória, Brazil, in a yellow house surrounded by star-fruit trees and chicken coops. His father, who wrote software for a local bank, instilled in him an interest in computers. On weekends, when Guimaraes got bored with Nintendo video games, he programmed his own. In grade school, he built a humanoid robot and wrote enough assembly code to make it zip...

The number of companies that scored an 80% and above on The Disability Equality Index (DEI) more than quadrupled to 205 from 43 in 2015, according to a report released July 15. The DEI, facilitated by Disability:IN and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), is an annual benchmarking tool for the Fortune 1000 companies and the top 200 revenue grossing law firms in...

As businesses scrambled to create remote work infrastructure following pandemic-driven shutdowns, they may have also unintentionally advanced accessibility for workers with disabilities. Before the pandemic, many individuals with disabilities faced difficulties attending interviews and finding consistent travel options for work. Kirk Adams, CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, pointed out in an opinion piece for HR Dive that nearly 40% of people with...

The podcasting company Gimlet Media now faces a class-action lawsuit for failing to make its podcasts accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. In the complaint, filed today in New York, plaintiff Kahlimah Jones argues that Gimlet violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide closed captioning on various podcasts. As the suit points out, about 36 million people in the...

As summer kicks into high gear, and the Americans with Disabilities Act's 30th anniversary looms large at the end of this month, businesses in many jurisdictions are in the process of gradually reopening to the public. And if the long and difficult spring wasn't trying enough, businesses now face yet another challenge — balancing maintaining the safety of employees and patrons against complying with Title...