Accessibility Industry Update: March 2025
🎉 This edition marks the first anniversary of our industry updates. It’s difficult to believe we began publishing these a year ago, but we couldn’t be happier with the response. Thanks for all your feedback! If you have suggestions, comments, or questions on anything we’ve talked about, or if you’d simply like to keep the conversation going, please reach out. We would love to hear from you!
Finally, a huge thank you to the readers like you that continue to make these updates possible. 🎉
Contents:
- Takeaways from AxeCon
- Legal News and Updates
- IAAP Establishes a Certification Scholarship
- What We’ve Been Reading
Takeaways from AxeCon
Deque held their annual online multi-track accessibility conference from Tuesday, February 25 through Thursday, February 27, 2025. This year’s event certainly did not disappoint! We heard from some of the community’s foremost experts in accessibility, across topics including legal, development, design, the cloud, automation, GenAI, maturity models/assessments, burnout, and even how to make a killer cocktail!
Though it is impossible to compile each and every one of the things we took away in a short-form piece, here are a few of the big ones:
- Generative artificial intelligence (specifically large language models) have been taking the tech world by storm. As anyone who has spent even a little bit of time in this industry can attest to, accessibility is no exception:
- Many companies have successfully deployed GenAI (if only in a rudimentary form) to augment their operations. The pathway toward doing so in accessibility is less straightforward and largely a matter of research and trial-and-error.
- The American Foundation of the Blind (AFB) compiled a study on Current Trends at the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Blindness and Low Vision.
- Ailsa Leen, a program manager at Microsoft, shared three dimensions to consider in the development of inclusive AI: an inclusive AI/ML industry, inclusive models, and inclusive co-design of AI innovation.
- The European Accessibility Act remains top of mind—a matter of anticipation, joy, triumph, stress (depending on who you ask) and a combination of these emotions. The conference featured talks that cover everything you might want to know, including The European Accessibility Act (EAA): Why it’s here and how you can prepare for it, the humorous All aboard! A trip through Europe’s 7½ accessibility standards, and Navigating the European Accessibility Act (EAA) for Mobile Applications.
- U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth and Former Representative Tony Coelho talked about their approach to driving accessibility forward at the government level. This is the sort of talk that inspires action with the reminder that “we’re all in it together.”
- Mike Gifford talked about his chapter in the 2024 Web Almanac, containing an Axe scan of nearly 17 million domains to uncover statistics on the impact of policies and legislative changes on site accessibility.
- In Centering Neurodiversity for Better Product Experiences, we heard from Laurel Franciose (UX Designer at Adobe) about the ways to consider neurodivergence toward a superior product experience. It’s reminiscent of an article we shared back in January where a developer helped his 89 year-old grandfather send an email for the first time. The best UX is often the simplest one, something we don’t talk about nearly enough.
Miss all or one of these great sessions? You aren’t alone! Luckily, Deque offers them on-demand. Whether you’re driving to work or cleaning the kitchen, you can tune in at any time. Simply login or create an account at axe-con 2025.
Legal News and Updates
U.S. Legislative Actions
In last month’s newsletter, we spoke at length about the state of accessibility in response to recent executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI practices, signed by U.S. president Donald Trump following his inauguration.
We also briefly touched on a coordinated effort to challenge these measures, spearheaded by Democracy Forward on behalf of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (“NADOHE”), the American Association of University Professors, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (“ROC”), and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, Maryland. In late February, Adam Abelson (a U.S. district judge out of Baltimore) blocked the attempt to halt funding for DEI-based programs, calling it “arbitrary and discriminatory”. Bear in mind that the measure was granted via preliminary injunction, meaning that it will only remain in effect until the case has been decided.
Overlay Lawsuits
In other news, another web accessibility overlay company (UserWay) was sued for false claims and deceptive advertising.
Bloomsybox, a small flower delivery service, relied on UserWay to make their site accessible. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, they were taken to court in December of last year after a customer with a disability wasn’t able to use the website. In response, Bloomsybox filed a class action lawsuit, alleging that UserWay made statements that were not true in order to get Bloomsybox to buy the product.
You may recall the recent FTC order requiring popular competitor accessiBe to pay $1 million in damages, which unfolded in much the same way. We will have to see what happens. Regardless, the writing has been on the wall for years. It’s safe to say that serious limitations exist with accessibility overlays.
Title II Lawsuit
Last but not least, there has been movement with the DoJ’s Title II, which mandates compliance to accessibility standards on public sector websites. A blind resident of Louisiana sued the state when he was unable to access some of the content on the Louisiana Department of Health and Department of Children and Family Services websites. In response, the state said that since the regulations do not go into effect until 2026, the case should be dismissed. However, the judge refused, countering that just because a law is not yet enforced does not mean the party is exempt from the provisions of the ADA. You can read more about the case here.
IAAP Establishes a Certification Scholarship
The International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP for short) is the organization behind those CPACC, CPWA, DAS, and WAS acronyms you keep seeing on your LinkedIn feed. For years, they have offered accessibility practitioners a highly sought-after way to formally demonstrate their expertise.
Certifications come with a price tag, $430 for IAAP sponsors or $530 for individuals (WAS), $385 for members and $485 for IAAP sponsors (CPACC), etc. The Certification Scholarship Fund, announced at Axe-Con, offers some relief.
Donations are tax deductible, and applications will begin opening up in August of this year.
What We’ve Been Reading
- The Legal Landscape Around DEI Is Shifting. Your Messaging Should, Too – Harvard Business Review: In an age of uncertainty and shifting perspective around DEI, there is a fine line to walk.
- Before you buy an accessibility audit – Bogdan Cerovac: In our work with companies in just about every industry and sector, a big trap we’ve observed is an overreliance on accessibility vendors. This article talks about the steps you can take prior to involving one.
- Why State and Local Governments are Failing at Digital Accessibility – Converge Accessibility
- When the Federal Government refuses to follow its own laws, chaos reigns – Access-ability
- Evaluating overlay-adjacent accessibility products – Eric Bailey: How to consider products that are almost, but not quite, an accessibility overlay? Are they safe and effective? This piece covers these questions and more.
- Why the ‘none of the above’ checkbox pattern worries me – Adam Silver
- How I learned to code with my voice – Salma Alam-Naylor: A software engineer details the process that she uses to code without the keyboard.
- Comparing Local Large Language Models for Alt Text Generation – Dries Buytaert
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.