Digital Accessibility News

You can spot them on every other homepage: carousel widgets with auto-rotating content. Those who use them want to show more content within a limited space. At the same time, they aim to present the most important messages as prominently as possible. However, if design and development do not receive proper attention, you will be at the highest risk of creating usability and accessibility issues....

Seyfarth Synopsis: The number of ADA Title III lawsuits filed in federal court dropped by 24 percent, the lowest since 2017, and California is no longer the epicenter. ADA Title III case filings in federal court had been on a sharp upward trajectory since we started compiling these statistics in 2013. That year, there were only 2,722 lawsuits nationwide. Eight years later, in 2021, there...

Holden Foreman is the first accessibility engineer at the Washington Post, a role which entails maintaining up-to-date accessibility standards across the Post’s products, as well as researching new opportunities for accessibility, engaging with the paper’s audience about this topic, and educating other staff members on accessibility issues. This is a support role rather than a journalism role, but Foreman will also be working with newsroom...

Even as serial ADA lawsuit claims have faced pushback, case numbers still are climbing nationwide, with an estimated 12 percent rise in 2022 compared to the year prior. The increase in the number of website accessibility lawsuits will create pressure on businesses to devote resources to making their websites accessible to people with disabilities, attorney Minh N. Vu told the Northern California Record by email....

Before last year’s televised Grammys ceremony began, the award show had already garnered viral attention for its use of ASL interpreters on the red carpet. An accessibility measure rarely presented during the entertainment industry’s major awards shows, the presence of the sign language interpreters was the byproduct of more than a year’s worth of conversations between the Recording Academy and Recording Artists and Music Professionals...

A new class action lawsuit filed against Whirlpool claims its website kitchenaid.com is not accessible to visually impaired and blind people. More specifically, the lawsuit claims the company has not made its website compatible with screen-reading software that helps visually impaired consumers navigate websites....

No surprise here: Elon Musk has once again made Twitter worse. The CEO's latest blow to the platform's functionality removes free access to its API(opens in a new tab), posing an imminent threat for users with disabilities, accessibility advocates, and helpful bots. On Feb. 1, Twitter announced it would be moving all API access to paid tiers based on usage, another revenue grab as the...

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which leads development of the technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the web remains open, accessible, and interoperable, officially launched as a public-interest nonprofit organization as of Jan. 1. After 28 years of being hosted collectively at MIT and three other international host organizations, the crusaders for web standards have become their own entity. Many diverse brains make...

Websites are viewed as a critical asset for states because they often provide a first, and sometimes only, means of communication between government agencies and residents seeking services. And online services need to be accessible to all constituents. However, agencies with underperforming websites cannot effectively deliver services to constituents that require enhanced digital accessibility....

As some newsroom roles go the way of the dinosaurs, other new jobs are being born. This is the first in an occasional series of Q&As with people who are the first to hold their title in their newsroom. Foreman makes the case that accessibility in journalism is important for everyone: Making news products more accessible, after all, often means making them more user-friendly and...

February 1, 2023—Indianapolis, IN—A historic Indiana lawsuit seeking increased ballot accessibility for voters with print disabilities has settled. As a result of the settlement, the state has agreed to acquire a new remote accessible ballot marking tool that will allow these voters to cast their absentee ballots privately and independently. Voters will be able to access and mark their ballots digitally with their own assistive...

With at least 4.9 billion active internet users worldwide as of 2021, digital accessibility is more important than ever. Over 1 billion people around the world are part of the disabled community, and each one of these individuals deserves equitable access to in-person and online spaces. And as the world population ages, the need for accessible websites will only continue to increase. Digital accessibility stands...