Global Accessibility Awareness Day: May 17, 2018

 The Seventh Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is May 17

 

The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access, inclusion, and people with different disabilities.

The third Thursday in May is set aside to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day.  This year, it is being celebrated on Thursday, May 18.  Global Accessibility Awareness Day originally came about when a couple of webmasters had an online discussion.  They realized that few web developers really knew about what they needed to do to ensure web sites and apps were usable by folks with all kinds of disabilities, and compatible with a wide range of Assistive Technologies.  

The original celebration was aimed at backend developers. It challenged them to test their site for accessibility and make at least one improvement.  It directed them to resources they could use to check a site from a person with a disability's point of view.   It tried to ensure developers knew about technologies such as screen readers, alternative input devices, and principles of universal design.

In subsequent years, the effort expanded to encourage greater awareness of assistive technology, as well as how the digital world could do a better job of ensuring things worked for those using adaptive equipment.  Despite the fact there is legislation compelling an accessible digital world,  a lot of barriers remain.  Few developers are well versed in mandates, nor do they know how to comply. GAAD hopes to change this. 

Today, GAAD continues to focus on increasing awareness.  If developers knew more about how physical and cognitive limitations affect usability, and possibly exclude millions of potential users, they'd be more prone to address them. GAAD helps to facilitate this.  Events are planned to spotlight and demonstrate assistive technologies, both online and offline.  

How Can I Participate in Global Accessibility Awareness Day?

Experience the Challenges Users with Disabilities May Face 

As part of GAAD, users are encouraged to walk a mile in others' shoes by attempting to simulate what it's like to be a digital user with a disability.  Some ways you can do this follow:

• Go Mouseless for an Hour:  Many people with physical or visual disabilities are unable to use a mouse to navigate a PC.  There are keyboard equivalents for everything that can be done with a mouse.  To experience what mouse-challenged users experience on a daily basis, try surfing your favorite website and using your favorite apps with keyboard control alone.  If there are sites that make mouse-less navigation impossible, contact the webmaster to encourage him or her to improve the site's accessibility.
• Taste What it's Like for Folks with Visual Impairments: Folks who are visually impaired often magnify their screens, as well as use high contrast Windows Themes.  An easy way to fake this is to use the CTRL+ shortcut until your browser is set to view the page at 200%.  Fire up the built in magnifier included under Accessibility Options and see what it is like to use this to "see" elements that do not properly scale.  See if any "important content" disappears from the viewport when the page is magnified.  To make the experience even more realistic, smear an old pair of sunglasses with margarine, and wear those while you use your technology.
• Imagine What it's Like to be a Computer User who is Blind:  Install an open source ScreenReader (such as NVAccess) and turn off your monitor for an hour. Go into your browser settings and disable all images.  Or fire up a page in Firefox's Reader Mode, turn off the monitor, and try to navigate the page.  
• Simulate what it's Like for a Hearing Impaired User: Turn off your system volume, and turn on "Show audio alerts visibly" under the Ease of Access portion of Settings.  Set tablets and cell phones to "vibrate" mode and turn off all sounds.  Watch online videos muted, with closed-captioning turned on. 
• Try Some of the Built-In Accessibility Options: Both Windows and Macintosh have increased the number of built-in accessibility options with every new release.  The latest Windows 10 update greatly improves Voice Input. and Narrator has been improved for better voice output.
• Type Using a Mouth Stick: To experience what it's like for folks who cannot use their hands, try typing with a mouth stick instead of with your fingers. (A chopstick that came with Chinese takeout makes a good, short-term mouth stick.) Turn on Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys, and use those for navigation along with your mouth stick.  Refrain from using your hands for as long as possible.

Learn About Assistive Devices and Digital Accessibility

 

• Explore Built-In Accessibility Features: ALL modern operating systems include features designed to make things easier for people with accessibility issues. This includes Windows, Mac, Android, ios, and Linux.  You can find these in your system settings, usually labeled something like "accessibility options," or "Ease of access."  Sometimes, these are in a separate section; other times, the individual accessibility tweaks are found under the appropriate global category, like display, sounds, keyboard, speech, etc.  
• Visit the Adaptech Research Center to Learn about Assistive Technology: The Adaptech Research Network has developed an extensive database of free and inexpensive adaptive technology and a set of demonstration videos highlighting the capabilities of some of these tools.  This database will point you to free tools you can download to experience what it's like to use adaptive devices.
• Visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI):  The WAI has been around since the beginning of the World Wide Web. Its goal is to set accessibility standards for developers.  You can visit the WAI to find out about what constitutes digital accessibility, as well as what you need to do to your own web pages and apps so that they are usable by folks with disabilities.  
• Use an Accessibility Checker to Evaluate a Site: There are many Accessibility Checkers you can use to see what issues a user with disabilities may have.   WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool is a good online accessibility checker.   (Both Bobby and CynthiaSays, the original accessibility evaluation tools, seem to have gone away.)
• Find a Tool that will Help Mitigate Your Own Limitations: A tool may be necessary for a surfer with a disability; the same tool might make life easier for someone with a less severe impairment.  Challenge yourself to find a tool designed for a disabled individual that can enhance your own digital experience.  Search the Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft Web Stores for browser extensions that can remove distracting page elements, read pages for you, or help you navigate a website.  Use the resources already mentioned to help you in your quest.  (My aging eyes appreciate "large text" on my phone, something designed to help folks who are visually impaired, but makes me have to reach for the glasses a lot less often.)

Help Increase Awareness of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, as well as Assistive Technologies that can Help Users with Disabilities

• Publish a Blog Post: Publish your own Blog Post about GAAD and what folks can do to make the web a better place for users with disabilities.
• Promote GAAD on Social Media: Help bring awareness to GAAD by posting on your own social media accounts.  You can download the GAAD logo here.  Use the logo, along with the hashtag #GAAD.  
• Talk About GAAD: Talk about GAAD. Attend a GAAD Celebration.  Plan your own GAAD activities.  Encourage your community to begin celebrating GAAD and planning awareness activities and demonstrations.
• Visit the GAAD Website: To learn more about Global Accessibility Awareness Day, its history, and what you can do to help promote the cause, visit the GAAD website at http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/.  You can also find them on Facebook and Twitter.
• If You Are a Webmaster or Developer: Try out various assistive devices, then take a look at your own projects. Start developing with assistive technology and WAI guidelines in mind. It is very easy to develop for accessibility from the start; it is harder to retrofit.  Evaluate your own existing work, and analyze what changes need to be made.  Resolve to make those changes in honor of GAAD.  Resolve to start ALL future projects with accessibility guidelines in place. 
• Stop Using Photos in Place of Text: Perhaps the biggest barrier to accessibility is the proclivity to use a photo of text, instead of actual text. This includes screen-shotting blocks of text to get around character limits, or because you are too lazy to re-type.  Assistive devices see photos as graphics; they cannot interpret text contained within, and they do not try. 

Summary:

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is "a community-driven effort whose goal is to focus one day to raise the profile of digital (web, software, mobile app/device, touch screen kiosk, etc.) accessibility and people with different disabilities."  It is celebrated on the third Thursday in May.  As a person with a disability myself, as well as one of the pioneers in the Assistive Technology movement, this day is very near and dear to me.  My first foray into web development involved building a site that was the model of accessibility, back in the early days of the web.  From the beginning, developers have focused on making things pretty, rather than focusing on usability, and with the advances in web technologies, users with disabilities are often left in the cold.  Many web developers are self-taught, and have no idea about accessibility, the WAI, or how their design choices can exclude millions of potential users.  Global Accessibility Awareness day is a start.  We need to get developers more informed about accessibility requirements and technologies, so that the web can continue to remain accessible to all. I hope you will join me in celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day in 2018.