- Welcome to the first-ever, "The State of Accessibility" podcast from TPGi on LinkedIn Live. I am Mark Miller, and this is my co-host, Dr. David Sloan, Chief Accessibility Officer at TPGi, co-author of "What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility," a user research specialist and the keeper of specialist knowledge of inclusive user experience-designed design applied to digital technology. - And Mark is the Sales Director for TPGi and a member of the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Platform Architecture's Working Group on the Accessibility Maturity Model Task Force. That sounds like a mouthful, but it's really important work. Thank you for that, Mark. - You're welcome. And thanks, everybody, who hung in through, we had some technical difficulties. This is our first episode, so we fought a little bit with the streaming, but thanks to Anthony, our wonderful producer here. He managed to work through it and we're live with you. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We have three topics that we're gonna try to get through today, ADA Title II Regulations. The second one is the European Accessibility Act, which I know both of those are really hot and things that people are both are talking about now. And then we have an interesting sort of preview we wanna give you on this research paper that came out on Overlays from, I guess, was that a school in Ireland, David? - Yeah, so the researchers is one researcher from Technological University Dublin in Ireland, and a couple of researchers from Rochester Institute Technology in the US and RIT is a big hotbed of great Accessibility research. So this is work we want to pay attention to, but I guess we'll come back to that later on. - Yeah, we'll come back to that. And they'll probably follow up to all these things on future episodes, but let's dive in, David, with the ADA Title II Regulations. This is pretty exciting because this is offering some clarity that I think we've been looking for for a long time. So I'm gonna turn it over to you and let's dive in. - Yeah, so these regulations were published by the Department of Justice back in April. So they've been out for a few months now, but they've been promised for years and years and years and years. And it's great that we finally have something to connect the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, with digital Accessibility. And we have some level of clarity on what covered organizations can do to meet their requirements in the digital space. Now, the ADA was enacted back in 1990, and at that time, Tim Berners-Lee was still working at CERN and the Research Lab in Geneva and Switzerland, working on the web as a concept. It certainly wasn't something that was, you know, the all-pervasive thing that it is now. So when the ADA was enacted, there wasn't really any direct connection to how it might apply in the digital world. So for many years, you know- - David, I think it was like five years later before I even got the first AOL discs in the mail. Yeah, I'm serious. And I, you know, in college, somebody had showed me a website, but I did, I walked away not understanding what I had seen. And it wasn't until, you know, when I got on AOL I'm like, "Well, what's the difference between AOL and the web? What's this browser thing? So we're talking about quite a few years before, and I was a geek, I was techie, we're talking about quite a few years, so go ahead. - Yeah, so all that time, the ADA was kind of focused on the physical world. - Yeah. - But less so in the digital world. And we got some standards for physical environments, you know, standards that told you how wide doorways had to be or the ramps to allow wheelchair or scooter access into a building. And those standards gradually were adapted to include some reference to digital stuff, but specifically certain kiosks and how people could interact with those kiosks without meeting barriers. But we really, there still wasn't anything directly saying, "This is what you need to do to make sure that the digital environment you're in control of is accessible and meets ADA requirements." And we had to rely on court decisions, which is never great if you are not a lawyer or you're not interested in reading pages and pages of court decisions and arguments. You just want to know what do I need to do to make sure that I meet and exceed requirements- - About everybody. - Right. - Nobody wants to read that. And then the interesting there, the sort of further complication there is that different districts are coming up with different rulings and decisions. - Yeah, again, you know, I think there's other people in the Accessibility space cover this in with more detail, more authority than I do. I mean, I point to people like Lenny Feingold and Ken Akata who write very thoughtfully about the differences in interpretation of the ADA especially, the Title III aspect of ADA and whether it even applies to digital products like websites, especially, if there's a physical presence or not. So it's kind of complicated. And you know, when we're building digital products like websites or mobile apps, we're just writing content to go online. We shouldn't need a law degree to figure out what we need to do to make, make sure that those digital resources are accessible. So these regulations when they were published, were certainly helpful in confirming what a lot of people had been saying before. But here we had it in writing and, you know, something that the Attorney General had actually said, "This is here, here's what you've gotta do." - So can you talk to me a little bit about what is Title II actually say that we need to do? Like what is the direction that we now have that we haven't had until now? - Sure, so it's probably helpful just to clarify what ti Title II of ADA Covers Services Programs and activities that are provided by state and local governments in the US which includes public schools and universities. So, you know, it's a fairly significant proportion of the digital landscape that a lot of people in the US are going to be interacting with. So it should have a positive impact on a lot of people. And the basic sort of headline of the regulations is that they require web content and mobile apps to meet level EAA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG 2.1. And there are a few exceptions and we'll, I guess we'll we'll talk about those shortly, but fundamentally, it's connecting the ADA with WCAG and WCAG 2.1 now to people. - For the very first time. - For the first time. Exactly. And people are gonna be listening thinking, "Hang on a minute, WCAG is, the latest version is 2.2 that came out last year. Why is the ADA Title II Regulation for web and mobile applications focusing on 2.1? And I think it's a kind of pragmatic decision that the Department of Justice made, given that they were in the process of publishing or finalizing this rule around about the same time that WCAG 2.2 came out. And they felt that by publishing a rule that what was telling you to conform with a brand-new standard that had only just been published, that was maybe a bit too much for organizations to try and meet. And we can argue the pros and cons of that decision but at least, the Department of Justice explained their reasoning. And that's one thing that I think is really helpful in this rule is that there's a lot of discussion about why the rule ended up the way it was. You know, we may not agree with some of the parts of the rule, but at least you can read about why the Department of Justice wrote the rule the way they did, and they have justification for their decisions, which I think is, you know, that that kind of openness in decision-making is really helpful for us all. - I think the other interesting thing about that too, or the thing to sort of note is that a lot of people are familiar with section 508 and which is points directly that is the government regulations for, and that actually, is currently on 2.0. So it's either one step behind or so, one step behind. So the good news is this being something new, they were able to step in and advance us one step for this particular ADA Regulation. So it's not unusual to be behind. And in fact, there's things that are further behind. - Yeah, and one thing that, you know, the Department of Justice explained when they published these regulations, he said, "We cannot say any, we cannot include language like the latest version of the standard that the regulations have to reference a specific standard, a specific version of a standard." So they're kind of forbidden from future-proofing the law by, or the regulation by saying we, you know, conform with the latest version. And that's something that was certainly news to me as a, you know, somebody was kind of introduced to this whole decision-making process and it's unfortunate, but, you know, that's where we are. - And in some ways, I mean, who are we to really, you know, comment on what's right and what's wrong, And that's, but in some ways, it does make sense because they can see where it would be viewed as problematic to refer in any way to a guideline that doesn't exist. Because what if that guideline comes out and the guideline has problems? I mean, nobody anticipates that that's gonna happen. But I can see as a governing body how you would want to say "No, we're gonna look at it first and just make sure everything's okay." Make sure it's, you know, pressure-tested, maybe a little bit out in the wild before we say this is what everybody should do. So in a way, there's kind of two sides, I think, to that coin, and it makes a little bit of sense to me. - Yeah, it's a really good point. And at least we have a set of regulations that reference WCAG 2.1 rather than 2.0. You mentioned Section 508, right? That the difference between 2.0 and 2.1 is pretty significant compared to the difference between 2.1 and 2.2 in terms of extra requirements you need to, you know, that you need to meet. So, yeah, it's still very welcome and it still gives very much clarity to people who need to adhere, you know, they have obligations under the ADA and need to figure out how to apply those in the digital world. - And I think it's also worth mentioning, Dave, you know, this is really about the ADA and we're talking about Title II of the ADA, which as you stated earlier, serves programs and activities provided by the state and local governments, and that includes public schools and universities. But lots of times we're thinking about Title III of the ADA and Title III of the ADA points towards the public, right? It says places of public accommodation need to be accessible to people with disabilities. So Title II doesn't cover that I think is the first thing to understand, but there's still a lot of activity in the legal realm around Title III. We see that all the time. And this is a step towards adding clarity to that as well. It doesn't do it's not there yet. This is specific for Title II, but just leaning into how encouraging this is, it's encouraging that we're heading in a direction where it looks like we're gonna have clarity. - Yeah, I think having Title II Regulations helps us see what ADA regulations for websites and mobile apps looks like. You know, it has a reference to a recognized standard. It has a list of exceptions, you know, certain types of content that are excluded from the requirements. It makes reference to the ADA principles of fundamental alteration and disproportionate burden. And these are things that of help organizations, you know, avoid situations where they feel like they're having to completely change the functionality of something in an effort to make it conform to the ADA that doesn't, you know, that you're not supposed or not meant to completely change how the functionality of something or behave it. Disproportionate burden relates to the, you know, the financial efforts of making something accessible. There are these, you know, underlying principles of the ADA that still apply in the digital world, but in most cases, you know, fixing a website to make it accessible is something that, you know, I think in the vast majority of cases, it's something you should be doing and it would be very hard to justify not doing it by saying there's a disproportionate burden. So, you know, we have regulations for Title II, it should help show us what Title III regulations might look like if we ever get to that point where they exist. And I know a lot of people want them. People have said that they may be happening, but they're there. it's a more challenging process as I understand it, that means that it may take a while and obviously, you know, this is a big year politically in the US so, you know, there with a presidential election going on, I don't know how, how that might, what might happen afterwards and, yeah. - Well, I think we're that very good and thanks for covering that. I think we're pretty good on Title II and our next subject is the EAA, right? Which is kind of interesting and a lot of similar and in some different ways. Before we get to that though, David, I wanted to talk about just where if people are looking at Title II, they're looking at this new clarity around it and they need help understanding it, how it applies to them, what they need to do, all that kind of stuff. What should they do? - Well, I think going to ADA.gov and looking at the resources that are provided by the Department of Justice, there's a lot of really helpful information there. There's a fact sheet that introduces the rule in terms of why the rule exists, what are the key requirements, what are the exceptions, what are the deadlines to, for meeting the requirements and the regulations and additional resources. You know, I think I mentioned before about the openness of the Department of Justice and explaining their decision-making. There's also a lot of openness in the Department of Justice and in other federal agencies that can help people meet their requirements under the ADA. There's so much help out there to help, you know, to support people in figuring out what do they need to do. And ADA.gov is a great place to start in terms of figuring out, you know, where do we get started? How does this apply to us? And where do we go from here? - Thank you for that. Now, nine months from now, David, nine months from now, if you're in Europe, you've got a whole different set of things to be thinking about the deadline for EAA, which means when it, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand this is sort of when it goes into effect when you need to be looking at your public-facing things, that is on June 28th, 2025, which is nine months from today. Talk to us a little bit about the EAA and what it applies to, and what people should be thinking about and ultimately, like what should these next nine months look like for an organization that's affected by this? - Yeah, great question, and I have a complicated relationship with the EAA. So I was born and brought up in a country that used to be in the European Union. - Okay. - It decided to leave the European Union, - I think I know who you're talking about. - Then I moved to the US. So I don't live in Europe or the European Union, but I still have, you know, very close connections to it. I still have my EU passport. So there's definitely a connection there. And it's obviously something that a lot of people are talking about in the Accessibility world and, yeah. So the European Accessibility- - The ADA are Global organizations too. - Yeah, yeah. - Like how many, how many really large organizations are sitting in one place? It's just not. - Exactly. - The case. - Exactly, so. - Yeah. And I think that's, you know, even if you're based in the US and thinking, "Does this really apply to us?" Well, if you are providing products that are being sold in the European Union or if you're providing services that people in the European Union can access, then you need to be paying attention to the European Accessibility Act. And, again, it's another one of these really complex pieces of text that we can try our best to simplify, just as we did with the ADA regulations. You know, the European Accessibility Act is a directive that all of the European Union member states need to transpose into their national laws. So as a member state, you have an obligation to take the e the European Accessibility Act and apply it in your national legislation. But, again, just like the ADA, the focus is really on trying to simplify the requirements so that if you're providing or manufacturing products or providing services to people in the EU, you have the same requirements regardless of which country you're operating in. It's all about harmonizing requirements with, based on this fundamental principle that people with disabilities have the same accessibility needs in the digital world, regardless of where they live. So the requirements to support people with disabilities should be the same wherever you are, so this is all about trying to harmonize requirements rather than imply that you've gotta do something different if you have a website in Croatia versus if you have a website in Portugal, it's trying to make it easier for people to know what to do. - Which is only good for everyone, because now- - Absolutely, yeah. - It's clarity. And I wanna just step back to a kind of a point you were making, and that is that the EAA puts the onus on the different countries to do a few things, right? And those few things would be, first of all, to create the penalties. So if you're not complying with the EAA, it is up to the countries, which they've already done. This deadline passed a while ago where they say this is the penalty for not applying. And this other one is really interesting to me. And I really think about this in contrast to what we see. I mean the US as well, most people I'm sure could tell, but what we see with the ADA Title III in the US, it's a little bit of the Wild-Wild West in terms of everything really. and the governance of Title III, the ADA happens through the court system. So in other words, it requires somebody to complain and leverage the court systems to, for you as an organization to kind of be held accountable in any way. Whereas with the EAA, it leaves it up to the individual countries to actually have a governance system. So there's an theoretically more of a proactive way to say, "Hey, you are selling these public-facing products into our country. We're going to look at it, make sure it's compliant, and if it's not, there's penalties that we would leverage." So there's a lot of similarities, but there's also quite a few differences in the way that it all works. - Yeah, I think it's important to avoid putting all of the burden on people with disabilities to prove they've been discriminated against and moving it to state set up organizations that monitor and enforce the requirements, but do so in a helpful way. You know, this is not about kind of accessibility police coming around to your door and then carting you off the jail because your website had some missing alt texts. It's more about, "Hey, your website has some issues, please fix them." So, you know, you know, it's trying not to make it seem like it's a kind of anything sinister, but just taking the burden away from people who encounter discrimination and taking the, you know, that burden could be effort to find a lawyer to represent you, make a complaint, and then the cost of doing all that. You know, that's, in many cases, people encounter Accessibility barriers and just don't do anything about it because they can't, they feel powerless. Whereas putting some obligation on a state to hold organizations accountable, at least to some extent is a way of protecting the population, but also helping organizations understand what they need to do and know that it is a priority. So, you know, I think it obviously remains to be seen just how effective it's going to be. But it is a welcome move forward from putting all of the responsibility on the people who encounter discrimination to take action, to address that. - So, you know, and we've got that's a really good point, and then, and getting into the details of what it is that you actually have to do, like, you know, the standards and all that. It's really not too different of a story here from the Title II discussion that we just had the EAA points to something called EN 301 549, and EN 301 549 points to WCAG. You know, anybody wanna guess 2.1, right? It's the same one that we just talked about that the same level that we just talked about that. And that's at the EAA level, right? Just like Title II of the ADA. And so what, can you talk to us a little bit about that, because we've kind of got this two-step reference in the a EAA where it passes through this existing, or suggests, I guess this existing EN 301 549 standard, which, yeah, that's where we map back to the WCAG Guidelines. So can you talk to us a little bit about how all that unfolds? - Yeah, it's a little complex in that the European Accessibility Act doesn't directly reference any external technical standard or set of guidelines. And it's all done by referencing EU harmonized standards. If you meet a harmonized standard, then you can presume conformance with the European Accessibility Act, and I guess people closer to the lawmaking or rulemaking process in the EU will be able to explain why that is but there's a kind of distance and a kind of anonymization of the requirements. I mean, I'll give you a very good example. The EAA mentions the principles of perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. And anyone who's familiar with WCAG with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines will immediately recognize those as the four guiding principles. So the EAA mentions those four principles, but it doesn't mention WCAG, it doesn't make any direct mention of WCAG. So it's kind of implicit in there that if you conform to WCAG, then you should be pretty well set regarding EAA, at least, for software or web and mobile apps. But the EEAA is kind of very coy about directly referencing standards. But because EN 301 549 is a harmonized standard, if you can demonstrate that your digital product or service meets the requirements of EN 301 549, then you should be able to demonstrate you meet EAA EN 301 549 has requirements for hardware and software and web content and documents. So IT covers a whole range of products that are covered by EAA and, yeah, as you say, EN 301 549 currently references WCAG 2.1 level EAA. So there's harmonization with the ADA Title II requirements, - And I think that might change at some point. - Yes, EN 301 549 is currently undergoing revision. We are told that it's going to reference WCAG 2.2 level EAA when the new version is published. We don't know exactly when that will be, but it seems like it's likely to be beginning of 2026, which, unfortunately, is after the deadline of June 28th, 2025. So, you know, in terms of meeting EAA requirements on June 28th, 2025, then it'll be the current version EN 301 549 rather than the future version. - And that's a really good segue, I think, like, just to editorialize a little bit, like all this is a lot, right? It's very interesting to talk about and understand, but all this is a lot. And if you're a business out there, you've gotta be going like scratching head, thinking like, "Well, what, it's great, thanks, Mark and David, what am I supposed to do?" Right? And I think the bottom line, this is what I would say, and this is what I hear from other professional accessibility professionals, is don't get too caught up in all of this detail. The real message is like, we started the discussion in the EAA with, right now you've got nine months. Do something like approaching Accessibility and starting to work on Accessibility. And by the way, Accessibility is an ongoing effort. There's no project here where you start, you finish and you're all set, you know, there may be project-feeling-things along the journey, but overall, just like keeping a website is bug-free as possible, you know, never zero. That is an ongoing effort and always will be. As long as you have a website, as long as you have an application, there's no difference between that and Accessibility. So putting those processes in place, starting to address issues on the site and not getting too wound up about, you know, I mean, I would look at it for 2.2, you know, 2.2 is 2.1 with additional success criteria. So you're not going to be in a situation where it's different. These are all additives, so just start working on it. Don't let the complexity kind of give you that analysis paralysis and have you hold off looking around what's gonna happen. And by the way, you are gonna have more people able to use your digital products if you do that anyways. So I think that that's the way I would sort of wrap this up, David, and I don't know if you have any other thoughts about that before we go to this. - Yeah, I think that's a really good wrap up. And all I would add would be document whatever you do, document your process for improving Accessibility. And that shows anybody who wants to know that you've made efforts and you've made progress and you have that written down somewhere, whether it's an Accessibility roadmap or an Accessibility statement or VPA or whatever, you know, some kind of documentation of your Accessibility of the product. And the other thing is involve people with disabilities in the design and development process. You know, there's a lot of focus on conforming to technical standards, but ultimately this standard and the ADA Title II standard, what counts is that people with disabilities can use a product or a service for its intended purpose. And the best way to ensure that is to involve people with disabilities in that design and development process. And even if there's areas where you're not technically conformant if you can show that those areas don't materially affect people with disabilities from being able to be successful using your products and service, you know, that's the most important thing. - Yeah, and I think that was a really interesting addition. So let's move to our last subject here. And that is this new research that came out on Overlays, right? And I'll just start it off just to define what we're talking about here. So oftentimes when you're talking about conforming to the guidelines, making your website, making your digital content accessible, we're talking about coding it properly so it doesn't fail to these guidelines, number one, and coding it properly so that people with disabilities who use assistive technologies or require alternative means of access can successfully use those assistive technologies or access and alternative means of access. So that's kind of the way you, the world that you and I come from is let's make the code, let's make it programmatically correct for all of those things. Overlays are a little bit different where they purport to be sort of a plugin that you can add to the site that will make those adjustments for you. I guess in the easiest, most broad way to explain it, there's more detail in that and there's a lot, sometimes there's a lot of controversy over those Overlays and there's some new research that's come out. So talk to us a little bit about that. And I think this is your world, right? David, this is the world that you came from, the academia, I think it's actually from, from where you lived, right? Partly here for some of this. So this should be, I'm sure you're sort of excited to see this kind of activity going on. - Yeah, I love to see academic research that is immediately and directly relevant to the wider tech industry and especially at in Accessibility. And, yeah, for a long time, there have been some concerns about the effectiveness of Overlays, you know, I mean, stepping back, any technology that helps improve the Accessibility of the digital world to people with disabilities is gonna be a good thing. And if that's powered by artificial intelligence and it works, then that's great. The challenge with Overlays is that often, the promises have not being, you know, realized in practice. And indeed, the title of this paper is the Promise and Pitfalls of Web Accessibility Overlays for Blind and Low Vision Users. So this is research that's, it's a sort of pre-publication paper that's gonna be presented at the upcoming assets conference in Newfoundland, Canada. And Assets is an academic Accessibility conference that's been going for, I guess, for mid '90s when I was in, Academic Assets, was the place you wanted to get your Accessibility research published. So it's a conference that's been going for a long time. It's a very good reputation, very solid, peer review process. So papers don't get accepted for assets unless they're, you know, solid-quality research giving your really helpful additions to knowledge. And this one looked at Overlays from the perspective of people who are blind or low vision and interviewed people to get their experiences and opinions of Overlays. And perhaps not surprisingly, it found that people didn't have great experiences. You know, Overlays- - When you say people, we're specifically referring to Native Screen Reader users. - Right, people who are blind and low vision and some people might be listening to and argue that, well, Overlays are really targeted more people with fairly mild disabilities or older adults and aren't really intended for people who already have assistive technology like screen readers. The challenge is that they're still marketed as a way for organizations to avoid having to fix their own websites while meeting their legal requirements. So the overlay is still there and is gonna be part of the screen reader user experience unless the Screen Reader user can turn it off or somehow ignore it. So, you know, they're still there. But a pull, there were a lot that, without going into too much detail of the paper, it gives some examples of where people found issues. And one thing that appeared to surprise the researchers just from the tone of the paper, was the way that Overlays influenced people's opinions about the organization that was providing them, you know, it was as if, almost as if to say, "Well, you don't really care about people with disabilities if this is your approach to Accessibility." So there's a, you know, a potential, a concern for people who are relying on quick-fix solutions. And ultimately, this quote from the paper, "The study highlights the pressing need to move away from superficial technological fixes and towards deeper, more meaningful engagement with the needs of disabled users," and that goes back to something that we've said a couple of times in this conversation. Ultimately, working with people with disabilities and the design development testing process is going to be the best way to ensure that the product, that the digital resource you create is as accessible as possible. And I know that people will say, "Well, we don't have time or we don't know where to go to find people with disabilities to work with." It's easier than ever, you know, there are lots of organizations out there that can connect you with people with disabilities. There are lots of ways, you know, through social media or other channels to directly contact people with disabilities who are technology users and would be delighted to be able to help, you know, evaluate products or provide guidance. So, you know, it's all about focusing on users rather than finding magic solutions that avoid you having to do the work. - And we certainly can help if you're listening and you're thinking, "I do need help." So that's very good. I think the takeaway here is that this overlay research is a little bit of a to-be-continued, right? What we've seen so far is a preview of what's gonna be. What's gonna be debuted, I guess at the conference? So, and that is the A, Assets Conference, which is next month in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. So if you're one that likes to follow these things, this is your heads up, that's the place it's gonna go. And we'll probably talk more about it once it's sort of officially been debuted and more beyond what is just essentially a preview right now. But very interesting and very good and I hope that we see more research, not just on Overlays, but on Accessibility in general of this type and of this quality. - Absolutely, we need data either to validate assumptions that we've made about something either being good for Accessibility or bad for Accessibility, or if the data challenges what we thought was an assumption, that's important as well. So if a paper came out saying "Overlays were great," then that's important for us. You know, so we're open-minded, we want data, and the more data the better. - Well, David, any last words? I think we did a good job, we're ready to wrap up our first "The State of Accessibility" podcast - There's so much more to talk about. It seems like we can fill up- - This is kind of me cutting you off 'cause I think you could keep going. - Yep, yep. - Great, all right, well, thank you so much. That was fantastic. So now you know "The State of Accessibility. I am Mark Miller, thanking David Sloan and reminding you that the state of accessibility is always changing, so please help us affect change and we will see you in one month's time, October 24th, for the next edition of "The State of Accessibility" podcast. - Thank you, Mark, thanks everyone. Bye-bye.