Accessibility Industry Update: July 2025
Welcome back to the mid-summer edition of the QualityLogic accessibility industry update.
While summer is definitely here, and this month was a tad lighter than normal, the accessibility world is by no means taking a break. We’ve got the European Accessibility Act officially in effect (cue the collective holding of breath), some interesting legal developments in the United States, and plenty of talented and thoughtful people sharing their thoughts on everything from ARIA best practices to AI’s role in accessibility.
This month’s roundup has the usual mix of what’s happening now, what’s coming up, and some really good reads we think you’ll find useful. Whether you’re deep in EAA compliance mode or just trying to stay on top of things, here’s what’s been on our radar.
As always, let us know if you think we’ve missed something, or share the link with your colleagues or partners who may benefit from some or all of this information. You can also sign up to receive these accessibility updates via email.
Contents:
Upcoming Events
- The 2025 Global Corporate Disability Inclusion (Disability:IN) conference and expo will be held in Orlando from July 14-17
- Registrations are now open for Knowbility’s Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR), which kicks off in September
- GitHub announced the Open Source Accessibility Summit, which will be a one-day in person event bringing together members of the accessibility and open-source communities. It will occur on Sunday, October 12 in Raleigh, NC
How’s It Going in a World Post-EAA?
The European Accessibility Act officially went into effect as national law in all 27 member states on the 28th of June. Since you’re reading this newsletter, chances are you’ve heard about it before: if not ad nauseam, then in passing as accessibility advocates work to share the news and help businesses prepare. If not, or if you’re trying to inform others, here’s a short list of resources to help:
- We did a blog with our partners at Lumar on Preparing your Website for the upcoming regulations. This is a fairly high-level overview.
- Deque put together 20 FAQs ranging from what the act is, to exceptions, determining disproportionate burden, US applicability, and more.
- TetraLogical has a deep dive on understanding the EAA, including what each of the provisions mean if you want to get into the weeds.
- Is Your Website EAA Compliant? Six Web Accessibility Questions To Ask – Forbes
Unsurprisingly, the EAA has created quite a splash! From financial leaders warning that it will reshape the payments industry, to people realizing that it will impact event organizers, and Digital Business Ireland issuing a warning that almost half of Irish businesses are not ready.
Similarly, the Digital Trust Index 2025 tracks the digital accessibility of the top websites in the EU. They found that 93% of homepages have at least one failure, which is only a slightly better result than what was reported in the latest WebAIM million. It is worth noting that a failure detected by an automated checker doesn’t mean a blocker, it could be low hanging fruit sitting in a backlog somewhere, or potentially a false positive. Still, it paints a rather bleak picture. Eric Eggert published a candid piece that seems worthy to mention here: So, you screwed up your EAA compliance. What now?
Legal Stuff
June was a quiet one, as compared to months past:
- The state of Virginia codified HB2541 into law under Virginia code Chapter 35, ensuring that information and communications technology (ICT) procured or developed internally is accessible aligning with the DOJ Title II rule.
- June 2025 Accessibility Legal Update – Converge Accessibility
- A Deep Dive into the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act of 2025 – Karl Groves: Covers changes proposed under H.R.3417
- The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is suing the Whitehouse again after it stopped providing American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters for press briefings in January 2025. This directly follows a 2020 court ruling requiring interpreters for all COVID-19 and press briefings.
- Is the DOJ Web Accessibility Rule in Danger? – Converge Accessibility
What We’ve Been Reading
- Forbes published the first Accessibility 100 list highlighting the industry’s biggest innovators and impact makers in the industry. We were thrilled to see some of our partners make the cut.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will celebrate its 35th anniversary on July 26. To commemorate the occasion, the ADA National Network put together the ADA Anniversary Toolkit at adaanniversary.org
- Michele A. Williams has written a book on Accessible UX Research, focused on how to recruit, plan, and design with inclusiveness in mind. It’s on pre-release with a target to ship e-copies this Summer and physical copies in August.
- Accessibility and AI: Help or Hindrance? – QualityLogic
- Comparing local LLMs for alt-text generation, round 2 – Dries Buytaert: Includes a neat CLI-based benchmarking script that works with most state-of-the-art models. I will definitely be running this as new ones are released.
- How to (not) use aria-label, -labelledby and -describedby – Steve Frenzel: An important reminder about ARIA, specifically the best way to go about labelling things.
- Does AI Make Technology More Accessible Or Widen Digital Inequalities? – Forbes
- When AI meets sign language – The Media Leader
- Mission Impossible – Accessibility Job Roles – Craig Abbott: Or how to avoid taking on an accessibility role that is impossible, or that is a kneejerk reaction to impending deadlines.
- You’re not an accessibility specialist until you’ve… – Bogdan on Digital Accessibility
- The European Accessibility Act: Dreams and Gratitude – Law Office of Lainey Feingold
- Understanding EN 17161 Design for All – TetraLogical
- iOS Accessibility Inspector: Beyond Automation – DEV Community
- WordPress needs documentation about accessibility, help me work on it – Rian Rietveld
- What I Wish Someone Told Me When I Was Getting Into ARIA – Smashing Magazine
- WCAG 2.2 Card Deck – GitHub (hosted on Figma)
- Dennis Deacon has been on a roll, publishing multiple comprehensive articles (one per week) covering accessibility testing methods for
- Accessibility Statements: The good, the bad, and the ugly – Access Ability newsletter
As always, let us know if you think we’ve missed something, or share the link with your colleagues or partners who may benefit from some or all of this information. You can also sign up to receive these accessibility updates via email.