2024 has been a busy year in digital accessibility! As part of our end-of-year review, I asked members of the TPGi team to share their highlights in digital accessibility and disability inclusion. Here’s a selection of those highlights.
Incorporating Accessibility into Organizational Strategy and Practice
We’ve been active helping our clients advance their digital accessibility efforts in various ways:
“This year I got to lead an amazing team working to demystify accessibility guidelines for a client and tailor to the needs of the client’s developers, designers, and project managers. This client is working to make sure that accessibility is a part of every decision made in the organization. It’s this kind of deep understanding, caring, and dedication that I hope to see more of in 2025!” – Alicia Evans, Senior Accessibility Engineer
“This year we’ve partnered with a client to help incorporate PDF accessibility into their journey; large-scale PDF accessibility is often sidelined for multiple reasons. It’s been no small task for them, but they are proactive and resilient and it’s inspiring to see the care they take to meet this challenge.” – Amy Turany-Mayer, Senior Accessibility Engineer
Preparing for the EAA
Preparing for the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has been a big focus of our year:
“In 2024, the EAA continued to shape the accessibility landscape as businesses and organizations ramped up their efforts ahead of the 2025 implementation deadline. It’s been rewarding to collaborate with clients during this crucial preparatory phase, helping them navigate the complexities of the EAA and ensure their digital products and services meet the upcoming requirements. I was also delighted to attend the IAAP EU Accessibility 2024 Hybrid Event in Paris this April, which sharpened focus on the challenges ahead and highlighted the importance of proactive planning as the deadline approaches.” – Dave Swallow, Principal UX Consultant
“I kicked off the TPGi Knowledge Base update for European standards, to help our accessibility engineers evaluate websites, apps, and devices on an up-to-date baseline that includes the European Accessibility Act.” – Mitchell Evan, Principal Accessibility Engineer
“Our team is collaborating with a major international company to ensure its e-Commerce websites comply with the EAA. These digital accessibility improvements are not limited to the EU; many are being implemented across the company’s global sites. We’ve significantly improved the digital experience for our client’s customers, encompassing web, native apps, and additional digital products. This worldwide impact makes our work both exciting and deeply rewarding.” – Jeanne Erickson Cooley, Senior Accessibility Engineer
Accessibility Legal Developments in the U.S.
We’ve kept watch on other significant developments in the legal space around digital accessibility and digital inclusion:
“In Dec. 2023, Bryan Bashin and the California Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) reached a landmark settlement. The California False Claims Act was used to charge that Conduent, DPR’s app vendor, falsely claimed that the site that they built, was accessible. The settlement has huge implications for assigning accountability to vendors that promise to deliver an accessible site. In 2024, California lawmakers proposed bills in response to the case — assigning liability to vendors and that only a professional reviewer may make representations about a site’s accessibility. Although the bills are on pause and subject to change, it’s worth keeping an eye on this in 2025.” – Aaron Farber, Senior Accessibility Platform Consultant
“Airline travel in 2025 is set to become more dignified for passengers with disabilities under a new Department of Transportation (DOT) rule. DOT data shows that one in every 100 wheelchairs or scooters transported on domestic flights is damaged, delayed, or lost. The new rule requires training for airlines workers responsible for physically assisting passengers with disabilities and handling their wheelchairs. It also outlines steps airlines must take if they damage or misplace a passenger’s wheelchair.” – Charu Pandhi, Senior Accessibility Engineer
Sharing Accessibility Knowledge
Our team has also been busy spreading the message about digital accessibility through participating in conferences and writing content:
“I attended a general front-end development conference where I introduced 11 speakers and every single one of their presentations referenced accessibility, not as a ‘special’ thing, just as a matter of course within their topic.” – Ricky Onsman, Principal Technical Writer
“2024 has been a transformative year for me as I joined TPGi, stepping into an incredible environment that champions digital accessibility. A highlight was writing a blog post titled When is a skip link needed, where I explored the importance of this fundamental accessibility feature and provided practical insights for developers and designers. It’s been a rewarding journey, and I look forward to contributing more in the years ahead.” – Akash Shukla, Accessibility Engineer
Advancing the Development of WCAG
TPGi continues to be active in the accessibility standards development field. 2024 saw some great advances in the development of version 3 of WCAG (which now stands for W3C Accessibility Guidelines).
“WCAG 3 is a major rewrite of the accessibility guidelines to be more flexible to new and emerging technologies while providing important updates for the changing needs of people with disabilities. The guidelines are still very much in an exploratory phase, but recent updates to the draft document show how WCAG 3 might be structured. The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group maintains a WCAG 3 Explainer to help keep the general public informed of the structure and direction that WCAG 3 is taking, as well as background on how they got to where they are today.” – Brian Elton, Training Practice Manager and TPGi’s W3C Lead
Assistive Technology Gets an AI Boost
And we were excited to see some significant developments in assistive technology, helping empower people with disabilities to interact effectively with digital content:
“JAWS Picture Smart AI was released in 2024. It’s a powerful use case for artificial intelligence and it’s elevating JAWS users’ experience on the web. Multiple JAWS users have told me of using the feature to understand memes and other content on social media that would be inaccessible otherwise. Amazing!” – Aaron Farber, Senior Platform Accessibility Consultant
“In September, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Apple AirPods to be used as hearing aids, enhancing assistive technology support for iPhone and iPad use.” – Wes Estes, Accessibility Engineer
Reflecting on 2024 Digital Accessibility Trends
My personal highlights of 2024 included visiting the United Nations headquarters to attend COSP 17, the annual conference reporting on progress towards the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the publication of the book What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility with my co-author and TPGi alumnus Sarah Horton.
I’ll finish by saying thank you to everyone who makes the effort to advance digital accessibility and disability inclusion. As we look ahead to 2025, there may be some uncertainties, but what we can be sure about is the importance of ensuring digital resources are accessible to and usable by people with disabilities will only grow. And there will be plenty of work to do to make that happen.
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