Have you been asked to provide information about the accessibility of your digital product by a commercial customer or a government agency? Do you know how to provide a report on your product’s accessibility? 

You’ll need to create an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) that documents the product’s conformance with applicable accessibility guidelines using the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, commonly known as the VPAT. The question that many companies face is, “how do I create an ACR that is going to present my product’s accessibility information accurately and in a way that my customers can understand?” 

The path to creating an accurate, informative ACR is not complex, but it requires you to rigorously and honestly assess your product’s accessibility and then present your findings in the VPAT. Let’s discuss the journey you’ll take when planning and creating an ACR.

What is an ACR?

An ACR is a snapshot of how your product conforms at a point in time to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and other relevant accessibility standards. It provides potential customers with information about the accessibility of your product and alerts them to potential accessibility blockers.

You may have heard of an ACR referred to as a VPAT. Many people use the terms “VPAT” and “ACR” interchangeably. They are related, but different.

The VPAT is the template available on the Information Industry Technology Council (ITI) website. When the VPAT is completed with information that documents a product’s conformance with accessibility standards, then it is an ACR.

An ACR for any product should not just be a response to a request from a potential customer. It should be part of the overall marketing approach for any digital product. By being transparent about the current state of a product’s accessibility, you demonstrate an awareness of the importance of including all people in your customer base and a commitment to achieving that inclusion. If your company only prepares an ACR when asked, how many customers are going to go to your competitors who offer an ACR without asking?

The ACR begins with basic information about your product such as the name, description, and version number, as well as the date of the report, which may correspond to the release date of a version or the date an accessibility assessment was completed. The ACR also lists the accessibility standard(s) your product is being measured against, states the conformance levels for each criterion within the standard(s), and provides an explanation of why a particular conformance level is stated for each criterion. 

Every ACR requires a statement of conformance with WCAG. There are 3 versions of WCAG you can select for the ACR: 2.2, 2.1 or 2.0. Two other accessibility standards may be included in the ACR: 

  • Section 508 – Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires federal agencies to make all of their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508’s accessibility standards provide specific requirements that any information or communication technology (ICT) product must meet to be purchased by the federal government. Many state and local governments also require any ICT that they are considering in procurement to meet these standards. With that in mind, if you have customers (current or potential) in the U.S. public sector, consider including the applicable Section 508 standards in your ACR. 
  • EN 301 549 – Similar to Section 508, the European Union’s EN 301 549 regulations provide accessibility requirements for all digital products, such as websites, non-web software (including mobile apps), and electronic documents. If the product will be marketed in the EU, your ACR should include EN 301 549.

Section 508 and EN 301 549 also have accessibility requirements for computers and other digital hardware, so if a product includes hardware, conformance with these requirements is documented in an ACR.

The VPAT lists all WCAG accessibility requirements as well as Section 508 and/or EN 301 549, if desired. For each individual criterion or requirement, there is space to state the product’s “Conformance Level” and another to include any “Remarks and Explanations” to justify or describe why that conformance level was assigned.

Conformance Levels

For each criterion or requirement in an accessibility standard, the ACR must state a conformance level to indicate how well the product satisfies the requirements of that criterion. The following conformance levels are used: 

  • Supports: The functionality of the product meets the criterion without known defects or there is an alternate means available to comply with the criterion.
  • Partially Supports: Some functionality of the product does not meet the criterion.
  • Does Not Support: The majority of product functionality does not meet the criterion.
  • Not Applicable: The criterion is not relevant to the product.

Remarks and Explanations

For each criterion, it is helpful to include a brief explanation that justifies the conformance level. For those criteria with a conformance level of  “Partially Supports” or “Does Not Support,” the explanation often includes a list of major accessibility issues identified as relevant to the criterion found by the assessment. These explanations provide customers and prospects with context around any accessibility concerns. 

Assess the Accessibility of Your Product

Now you know what an ACR is, the next step is to perform an accessibility assessment of your product to provide an evidence-based foundation for the determination of the product’s conformance with each WCAG success criterion (and the Section 508/EN 301 549 requirements if included). If your company has accessibility experts on staff, this assessment can be done in-house. Many companies elect to have a neutral third-party perform the accessibility audit. That company often creates the ACR based on the audit results as a deliverable of the audit. 

The scope of the audit must include a representative sample of the content and functionality of your product. A good assessment will include key functionality and content to provide an accurate appraisal of the accessibility of your product.

An accessibility assessment often creates an opportunity to improve the accessibility of your product by uncovering previously unknown accessibility issues. Take advantage of this opportunity to fix the most significant issues before the ACR is written.

Write an Informative, Understandable ACR

With the assessment completed (along with any remediation of accessibility identified by that assessment), it’s time to complete the VPAT. It’s very important to be upfront about where your product stands in its accessibility journey. Most products have accessibility issues–acknowledge them. The ACR for a product is part of the marketing material for that product, and part of its purpose is to show your commitment to accessibility and transparency. Demonstrate that commitment by providing a forthright and honest statement of the product’s current accessibility in the ACR.

A part of being transparent is presenting all of the information in the ACR using language that, whenever possible, is understandable by people who are not familiar with accessibility, coding, and/or the particulars of digital content. If customers don’t understand the accessibility issues that you cite when explaining the basis for a conformance level, how will the ACR be a useful tool in their decision to purchase the product? Each accessibility issue needs to be presented in a way that’s easy to understand what the problem is, who it affects, and how.

Keeping the ACR Updated

When you complete an ACR for the product and make it publicly available, that’s not the end of the process: 

  • Most products evolve over time to meet the ever-changing needs of a dynamic customer base. Update the ACR periodically so it accurately conveys the accessibility of your product as it’s available now. 
  • As the product changes, its accessibility will also change. An ACR update may need to reflect that you fixed some accessibility issues, while other updates may be needed when you issue a new version of the product. 
  • When a new version includes new functionality or content, a new accessibility assessment may be necessary to provide the basis for the updated ACR.

Summary

Completing a VPAT to produce an ACR is a key milestone on your accessibility journey. An ACR for your digital product embodies your commitment to inclusion, accessibility, and transparency. An accessibility audit provides the foundation for an evidence-based ACR that accurately and honestly presents the state of the product’s accessibility. Using plain language in the ACR provides all of your customers with a clear picture of your product’s accessibility. By consistently updating the ACR, you keep your customers informed as you address any accessibility issues and add new, accessible functionality and content to the product.

At Deque, we are here to support you on your accessibility journey, including assessing the accessibility of any digital product and drafting an ACR for that product based on that assessment. 

Steve Lowe

Steve Lowe

Steve was introduced to digital accessibility in 1994 while working at AbleData, the national assistive technology information service, which mainly served people with all types of disabilities, caregivers, and family members. As a lead content provider and then a manager for the AbleData website for almost two decades, he discovered the importance of integrating accessibility into the design, development, and testing of all digital experiences, a discovery that sparked a passion for accessibility. As a Senior Accessibility Consultant and Accessibility Coach at Deque, Steve brings this passion and over 25 years of experience in web and document accessibility to guide clients on their accessibility journey. He has worked with a wide range of commercial and government clients, and he loves sharing his expertise in web and PDF accessibility.

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Tags:  accessibility awareness ,  accessibility best practices ,  accessibility compliance ,  accessibility user experience

We’ve just tripled our Integrated Development Environment (IDE) support! In addition to a VS Code extension, Deque now offers axe DevTools Linter as a plugin for paid IntelliJ IDEA and WebStorm editions.

A quick refresher on axe DevTools Linter

Axe DevTools Linter is a powerful tool for your software development team. We provide a mini-linting-toolbox that helps catch issues at multiple points in your process:

  1. Directly in the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It’s like spell-check but for accessibility.
  2. Git pre-commit hooks. Developers receive accessibility feedback when they commit changes locally with Git.
  3. Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) integration. When developers submit a pull request, accessibility linting automation runs over those changes. We have a GitHub Action available, and more tools to help make additional integrations easy.

The more “layers” of features in axe DevTools Linter you use, the less likely that accessibility issues will make it into production, saving you time and money.

See the new plugin in action

The axe DevTools Linter plugin highlights accessibility errors in the IDE with a red wavy line and provides a tooltip indicating the error. The tooltip includes a link to Deque University for more information about the specified accessibility error. The accessibility errors also appear in the Problems tool window in the IDE, as shown below in WebStorm:

Screenshot of the the accessibility errors appearing in the Problems tool window in the WebStorm IDE using axe DevTools Linter.

Component libraries get love too

Axe DevTools Linter works straight “out-of-the-box,” but with a little customization, you can get even more value. Configure the linter to ignore certain files, customize the rules used, and even provide overrides to tell the linter how to treat a file with a non-standard file extension.

Imagine being able to tell your team “this is how you use the component library in an accessible way”–now you can. Axe DevTools Linter lets you write linting rules for your component library. Check out a recent webinar on how to enforce accessibility for Material UI components that goes into this topic in more detail.

These customizations are now available in the IntelliJ & WebStorm editions of axe DevTools Linter.

What’s free? What’s not?

Axe DevTools Linter now supports 3 IDEs:

  1. VS Code, it’s called axe Accessibility Linter
  2. IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate
  3. Paid editions of WebStorm

The VS Code edition of axe DevTools Linter is available for free.

The plugins for IntelliJ IDEA and WebStorm are premium features available with a purchase of axe DevTools Linter as a standalone tool or as part of our axe DevTools HTML toolkit. Contact us if you are interested in these tools. Pre-commit hooks and CI/CD integrations are additional premium features available.

Wrapping up

For organizations using IntelliJ IDEA and WebStorm, axe DevTools Linter just got more powerful. Empower your developers to shift accessibility left and catch accessibility issues in the IDE.

Contact our sales team to get a free trial of axe DevTools Linter or the full axe DevTools HTML toolkit.

 

Ben Allen

Ben Allen

Ben Allen is Deque's Product Manager for axe DevTools Linter, axe DevTools APIs & CLI, and axe Developer Hub. Ben has 20 years experience in building software and has been an accessibility program manager for 7.5 years, most recently at GitHub. While at PNC, Ben's team were the inaugural winners of the axe-con "Accessibility at Scale Award" in 2021. Ben loves to learn and claims to be a lifetime student of python, and more recently, ukulele. Sea Shanty anyone?

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Tags:  axe DevTools ,  axe DevTools Linter ,  axe linter

Providing an accessible virtual event or presentation requires more effort than one might expect. Besides the effort of the organizers of the events, individual speakers and presenters must also remember to keep many accessibility considerations in mind to provide an equal and accessible experience to attendees with disabilities. Below is a checklist we provided to speakers at axe-con, Deque’s accessibility conference, that we thought might be helpful to share.

Accessibility Checklist for Speakers

  1. Ensure that your slides are accessible. As a best practice, have all text on your slides be at least 18 pt or larger. If you want to go above and beyond you could use 20 pt or 24 pt as your minimum text size.
    • Text Color Contrast – We recommend 4.5 to 1 contrast for all text on your slides to provide equal access to attendees with low vision. This can also benefit any attendees with lower quality displays or projectors.  And you do want them to be able to see your content, right?
      • At an absolute bare minimum, all text must pass accessibility requirements (4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text – 14pt bold or 18pt or larger).
    • Accessibility Checks – Your slides should pass an accessibility check in PowerPoint and should be made available to attendees before the presentation so low vision and blind attendees can follow along during the presentation on their own machines. Having the slides ready well in advance will also be a helpful resource for any live caption or ASL providers to prep beforehand.
  2. Font Size and Contrast in Code Demos – If you are doing live coding demonstrations, please make sure the size of the text is large enough and meets color contrast accessibility requirements. What is a good text size for code demos? 18 pt font is the bare minimum, ideally, aim for 24 pt. If you’re not sure how to test for color contrast, use this Color Contrast Analyzer to test for contrast ratios.
  3. Describe Visuals – Describe what is being visually presented on your slides for attendees who are blind or have low vision (you do not need to describe decorative images)
  4. Identify and Describe Speaker(s) – Say who is speaking when there are multiple presenters in one presentation. If your camera is on or you’re presenting in person, consider giving a brief description of what you visually look like. Describing yourself is optional. Some people who are blind appreciate learning a little bit about what you look like. For example, listen to why Haben Girma encourages you to visually describe yourself in this youtube video “I’m not white. Honest. Blind people and visual accessibility”. If you do give a visual description of yourself, keep it brief, because not all blind people want that detail.”
  5. Speak Clearly – Speak clearly and avoid speaking too fast for the live captioners and ASL interpreters
  6. Use Clear Language – Use clear language to give people time to process information for attendees who have cognitive disabilities
  7. No Content that  Flashes (Zero Tolerance) – Do not display any content that flashes. Content that flashes can be harmful to people who suffer from photosensitive epilepsy.
  8. Use Animations Very Sparingly – Any animation between slides must not include flashes and should be simple and not distracting for individuals with certain types of vertigo. If animation is critical to your presentation, be sure to call out regular content warnings for attendees so they can avoid the animation.
    • If possible, make sure any animation, video, or gif in your presentation can be paused or stopped.
    • If possible, make sure any animation, video, or gif in your presentation is no longer than 5 seconds.
  9. Avoid presenting content that contains violence, gore, harassment, sex, nudity, drugs, alcohol, or gambling – Words or images that contain violence, gore, self-harm, suicide, harassment, sexual assault, sex, nudity, drugs, alcohol, or gambling may be triggering for some people. If you choose to include this content:
    • Be sure to verbally call out regular content warnings during your presentation so attendees can choose to leave or be prepared to see/hear disturbing content.
    • Let the conference organizers know so they can add a written content warning to your session on the schedule.

Accessibility Best Practices for Event Organizers

If you are speaking at an event, it’s the organizers’ responsibility to provide certain accessibility considerations for attendees. Below is a checklist of items for you as a speaker to ask the organizers if they are providing. It’s a best practice to require these items for participation if you’re a guest speaker for an event.

  1. Live CART or ASL – Organizers should provide slides in advance to prepare attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing and provide better services the day of the presentation.
  2. Provide an accessible platform – Whether it’s a website or application, the platform should be screen-reader and keyboard accessible at the minimum.
  3. Distribute Accessible Slides in Advance – As previously mentioned above, it’s the speaker’s responsibility to finish their slides in advance so they can be made accessible and available for attendees with disabilities. It’s the organizers’ responsibility to remediate these slides as necessary and distribute them to attendees.
  4. Captioned Recordings – All on-demand presentation recordings should have captions for attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing.
    • AI-generated captions have historically been rife with errors when compared to human-generated captions, but some great advancements have been made in the last year to vastly improve accuracy. If you need speedy live captions, AI can help. If you are captioning a recording, use AI to do the heavy lifting but a human for quality review.
  5. Session Transcripts – All recorded videos should also have a transcript available for deafblind attendees.

Summary

It’s not always possible to be perfect and keep all of these considerations in mind during your presentation, especially if your nerves are running high. But it’s good to keep this checklist in mind to make your content understandable and enjoyable for all attendees. Also, keep in mind that you may have to hold event organizers accountable for the accessibility accommodations list above. When everyone contributes to making a presentation accessible, everyone benefits.

Laura Nandakumar

Laura Nandakumar

Laura is the Event Manager and Marketing Analyst at Deque Systems. She is passionate about marketing, writing, and creating accessible content for all.

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As a developer, you want to create more inclusive and accessible digital experiences for your users. Great! It’s possible, however, that you might be feeling a bit confused or overwhelmed by the element attributes that can affect the usability for users of assistive technology.

ARIA (or WAI-ARIA, Web Accessibility Initiative-Accessible Rich Internet Applications) defines some aria-* attributes with a name that is very similar to HTML attributes. This can lead to some confusion. Questions like, “Are they the same but one is for accessibility?” and “Should I use one or the other or both?” are very common. Here are some examples:

  • Is the aria-disabled attribute the same as the HTML disabled attribute?
  • Is the aria-autocomplete attribute the same as the HTML autocomplete attribute?
  • Is the aria-hidden attribute the same as the HTML hidden attribute?

Although the names are similar, the purposes are different and they are not interchangeable. It can be tricky to apply these right. According to a WebAIM 2023 study, home pages with ARIA present averaged 68.6% more detected errors than those without ARIA. Let’s briefly examine the similarities and differences of these attributes and how to implement them correctly.

Disabled and aria-disabled

The HTML disabled attribute makes a form control (and all its form control descendants) disabled, meaning it will be unchangeable, unfocusable, and will not be submitted with the form.  In addition, a lot of browsers will automatically change the visual presentation of the control too, making it appear visually dimmed and inactive. Semantically the form control is disabled.  You can add the disabled attribute on buttons, fieldsets, inputs, optgroups, options, selects, and textareas.

The aria-disabled attribute, when set to “true“, is different because it ONLY tells assistive technologies that the element (and all of its focusable descendants) is disabled.  Adding the attribute to an element and setting it to “true” will have no automatic effect on whether it can be changed, focused, or submitted in a form. Visual presentation of the element will not automatically change either. All of these features and functionality will need to be managed by a developer.  However, it can be applied widely, including on custom controls, making it a powerful tool.

Both attributes are useful and can affect the accessibility of a control. When using standard form controls, the HTML disabled attribute is easy to use and will be applicable for most use cases to disable the control. But when you need flexibility or are building a custom control (such as a custom disabled button) the aria-disabled attribute is the way to go! You should not need to use these both on a single control, but may need to use both in a page.

It’s worth reviewing more details.  You can find some great documentation on both:

Autocomplete and aria-autocomplete

The HTML autocomplete attribute allows a developer to specify what type of information the browser may suggest for an input and what kind of information is expected. There are various defined values for autocomplete that are valid. For example, autocomplete="given-name" on an input will signal to the browser that the field is expecting a first name and the browser may suggest first name values that the user has supplied in the past.

The aria-autocomplete attribute, on the other hand, tells an assistive technology that adding text to a combobox, searchbox, or textbox control may trigger display of predicted values while the user types (also known as autosuggest). If the value for the attribute is set to “inline“, it indicates that it will present a single value. And if set to “list“, it indicates that it will present a series of values in a separate element. A third option, a value of “both“, indicates that it will present a list and a predicted value.  Lastly, aria-autocomplete may be set to none, which is default, and indicates that the control will not provide predictions.  Because this attribute simply signals to an assistive technology that the functionality is present and does not cause any functionality, any behaviors or functionality will need to be completely managed by a developer.

Both attributes are important for accessibility. The HTML autocomplete attribute can greatly impact the speed, accuracy, and ease with which a user completes a form on a web page. It is also directly supportive of WCAG Success Criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA).  Using aria-autocomplete may help screen reader users to understand the complex interactions in custom controls such as an interactive search or a combobox.

This can still be confusing and there are a lot of important details. Take a look at further documentation:

Hidden and aria-hidden

The HTML hidden attribute causes an element to not render. The element will not display visually and will not be announced by a screen reader.

The aria-hidden attribute, when set to true, will cause an element to not be exposed to assistive technologies.  It does not change the visual presentation of the element. So it is possible that it will remain visible, but will not be announced by a screen reader. This may cause significant accessibility issues and should be used with great caution.  Never add aria-hidden="true" on a focusable element as this would cause it to lose its accessible name!

Both attributes are powerful tools that strongly impact accessibility. If an element should not be presented to anyone but needs to remain in the DOM, then the HTML hidden attribute is the right tool.  An example of this might be for a control that toggles visibility of some content, you can use JavaScript to simply toggle the hidden attribute away to cause the content to become visible and back again to hide from everyone. In a case where you have some visually decorative content that would be confusing or distracting to a screen reader user, you may want to consider using aria-hidden very carefully to ensure your message is clear. It isn’t necessary to use aria-hidden to supplement the HTML hidden attribute.  The HTML hidden attribute hides the content for everyone!

You can learn more about these from detailed documentation:

Let’s review

Although some aria-* attribute names are similar to HTML attributes, they serve different purposes and are not equivalent. Knowing when and how to use these makes a huge difference for the accessibility of the experience you’re developing. In general, aria-* attributes are useful to convey important information to assistive technologies about custom controls or complex interactions. HTML attributes can directly impact features and functionality. You will need to use them both!

Now that we’ve got that cleared up, go on and make amazing accessible experiences!

Jeremy Katherman

Jeremy Katherman

Jeremy Katherman is a Manager over Developer Services at Deque with over a decade of experience leading teams in accessibility in the banking and insurance industry and consulting with various companies worldwide to develop their accessibility programs. Throughout his career he has worked to inspire inclusion and a love of learning. He is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA) from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) and eager to help you take the next step in your accessibility journey.

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Tags:  A11y Expert/Developer ,  ARIA

Are you learning about accessibility yet? If not, it’s time to start.

From the moment I discovered digital accessibility 6 years ago, I was hooked. I finally found work that made me passionate. Who wouldn’t be excited about making the digital world a better place for everyone? That is exactly what accessibility and inclusion are about, it’s not for a select group of people that “need” it, but for everyone who encounters it.

Things started to change in 2020 with the pandemic. We heard about kids with disabilities trying to learn at home without the extra assistance they received in schools and employees who were suddenly home without all the tools they needed. This put a spotlight on digital accessibility. The number of digital accessibility lawsuits and reports of accessibility issues from users increased, pushing accessibility into the urgent zone. Because of this, more companies have an interest in accessibility in general and sustainable accessibility in particular.

WCAG 2.2 was released fairly recently, enhancing the guidelines for digital accessibility. So not only are accessibility skills in demand but developing accessibility expertise is increasingly straightforward. As technology advances, so will accessibility requirements, creating a more inclusive digital environment. This is the perfect time to start building your skills.

Why accessibility?

In the digital world, there is always some new trend to follow and some new skill to learn, and you can’t jump on every bandwagon. Why pick accessibility? Our Beginner’s Guide to Accessibility provides a good general summary of why accessibility matters and needs to be a priority. If that’s not enough, here are a few more reasons to start thinking about building your a11y skills:

  1. It will improve the overall quality of your code and your design and content.
  2. It’s a growing field that will always be needed and will evolve with technology (a LOT like security).
  3. Worldwide, digital accessibility is legitimately a growing concern. Here is a Google Trends graph of searches for WCAG (the top red line), “a11y”* (the middle yellow line), and “digital accessibility (the bottom blue line):

  1. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) is easily one of the biggest social and civil issues of our time, and it’s rapidly becoming a major concern in corporate culture. Some analysts say that companies are now putting more budget behind DEIA than compliance!

Start Learning A11y Today!

The Deque Team is passionate about education because making the digital world accessible to everyone of all abilities depends on you. It depends on everyone taking responsibility for doing the work, so we want to make sure you have the tools and the knowledge to do your part.

Deque University (DQU): No matter where you are in your accessibility journey, Deque training will help you thrive and grow. With hands-on experiences, live and self-paced courses, focused learning paths, and the world’s best online resources, the courses are designed to take you from beginner to expert. All built and delivered by the most experienced instructors in the industry, so you can learn in the way that works best for you.

There are courses and tracks that cover:

I personally used Deque University to help guide my accessibility journey and get my Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), which eventually led me to work for Deque.

DQU has over 140,000 learners, and through our Scholarship program, more than 1,200 people with disabilities have received full access to our curriculum. We’ve even had several scholarship recipients go on to become professional accessibility specialists after completing our courses.

Launch a great career, amplify your current skills, or start developing new skills today. Get ahead of the A11y curve!

Taryn Sikorski

Taryn Sikorski

Taryn Sikorski is an accessibility consultant who started her journey learning and teaching others how to create accessible digital educational content. It became a passion of hers in 2018 to make digital content not only accessible but inclusive. She is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA). In her spare time, she loves travel, photography, and snuggling with her two cats.

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Tags:  accessibility 101 ,  accessibility awareness ,  deque university

Axe-con is a digital accessibility conference that took place virtually February 20-22, 2024. Over 75 experts from companies such as Adobe, ADP, Amazon, GitHub, Hilton, HSBC, PNC, Proctor and Gamble, Ubisoft, and more shared their expertise on what it takes to build and expand upon digital accessibility efforts in this rapidly expanding space.

During the conference, developers, designers, business executives, and accessibility professionals from 158 countries expressed the demand for efficient, simple, and practical digital accessibility testing practices to help ensure a more accessible digital experience for all, including people with disabilities.

“The community response we see during axe-con is truly heartwarming and energizing. In a profession that is susceptible to burnout, events like this remind us about the positive difference we’re making and that there are tens of thousands of others working toward the same goal. It gets better every year.” – Glenda Sims, Chief Information Accessibility Officer, Deque Systems.

New to axe-con this year were “Watch Parties,” where local event organizers from around the globe assembled groups ranging from 3 to 150 to watch live and recorded sessions together, followed by a lively discussion. Gareth Ford Williams attended at HSBC UK in London and reflected on his experience: “Today was absolutely brilliant. Connecting out with your community again at something like this and finding out all these great ideas and great energy that’s happening. It’s just great.”

This year’s axe-con speakers emphasized the role of human-centric and ethical AI in digital accessibility. Evident in talks like Dr. Rumman Chowdhury’s “Responsible and Ethical AI“ and “Human-Centered AI and Accessibility” with Preety Kumar and Dylan Barrell, as well as “How AI will help us re-invent accessibility, lower industry load, and cover more disabilities.” with Gregg Vanderheiden.

“We want to make digital accessibility easy and ubiquitous. That is a serious endeavor and we have to make sure AI helps. Doing so in a responsible manner means having “humans in the loop” including people with disabilities.” – Preety Kumar, CEO, Deque Systems

We made several new announcements during axe-con this week:

  1. Axe Awards at axe-con 2024
  2. Deque University is offering early access to a new AI tool and automated consultant, axe Adviser.
  3. Deque Adds New Appium Plugin to axe DevTools Mobile

This year’s axe awards recognized individuals and organizations making important contributions to the world of accessibility. Winners included HSBC UK, Google and GitHub, and Jennison Asuncion, who received the annual Jim Thatcher Lifetime Achievement Award. These people and organizations raise the bar for inclusion everywhere. We’re proud to showcase their achievements and encourage others to follow their lead.

In addition, axe-con attendees and organizers are working to support NV Access, a nonprofit supporting the NVDA screen reader application, and Black Girls Code, a nonprofit supporting young women of color to embrace programming and technology.

Couldn’t tune into axe-con live? Registrants can view sessions on demand at: https://www.deque.com/axe-con/

Deque Systems

Deque Systems

Deque is the global leader in digital accessibility, helping the world’s top enterprises build inclusive products, services, and experiences and achieve lasting compliance. Recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, Deque delivers the industry’s most complete accessibility offering. The Axe platform, anchored by Axe-core, has more than 3 billion downloads and 875,000 installed extensions, making it the global standard for accessibility testing. As a pioneer of people-first accessibility, Deque applies a human-in-the-loop approach that blends expert insight with AI innovation to advance its mission of digital equality for all.

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Tags:  Accessibility ,  news

Get started with support for Image View Name, Active Control Name, Touch Target Size, Label in Name, and Label at Front – with more on the way.

Deque’s axe DevTools Mobile team is pleased to announce a new Appium plugin that works for any app–native or cross-platform–and doesn’t require embedded Deque code in your app. After the simple install, just add one line of code in your Appium tests wherever you’d like to take a scan for accessibility. Unlike other tools, it works with any Appium-supported client, too.

Before this axe DevTools Mobile release, Appium support was only provided for native iOS and Android apps. The new plugin provides much easier installation and functionality across platforms, not just native. Use the plugin to scan your native iOS or Android app, or cross-platform apps, such as React Native, Flutter, and .NET MAUI.

This initial release tests for five (5) accessibility rules including:

  • Image View Name – Focusable image elements provide an accessible name, WCAG 2.0 1.1.1 A
  • Active Control Name – Buttons provide an accessible name, WCAG 2.0 4.1.2 A
  • Touch Target Size – Buttons have a minimum of 44pt by 44pt visual and tappable area, WCAG 2.1 2.5.5 AAA
  • Label in Name – Accessibility focusable buttons have their name included in their visible label, WCAG 2.1 2.5.3 A
  • Label at Front – Visible text of a button is at the start of the button’s accessible name, WCAG 2.1 2.5.3 Best Practice

For many mobile developers, Appium is a preferred choice for automation. Its flexible, cross-platform format saves time and creates reusable code. With the new plugin, users can integrate Appium tests directly into their mobile pipeline to streamline and automate the process.

Together with the axe DevTools Mobile Analyzer, users can find and fix many digital accessibility issues for mobile quickly and easily. Going forward, this plugin will be our new way to test your mobile apps with Appium. The current Appium testing methodology with embedded code will be phased out. Stay tuned for even more innovation.

Read the full release notes to learn more about this new plugin.

Start a free trial today and we’ll keep you updated as we add new rules and functionality.

About Deque Systems

Deque (pronounced dee-cue) is a digital accessibility software and services company, and our mission is Digital Equality. We believe everyone, regardless of their ability, should have equal access to the information, services, applications, and everything else on the web. We work with enterprise-level businesses and organizations to ensure that their sites and mobile apps are accessible. Installed in over 475,000 browsers and with over 5,000 audit projects completed, Deque is the industry standard.

Axe ® is a registered trademark of Deque Systems, Inc.

News Media Contacts

At Deque:
Ryan Bateman, +1-703-225-0380, marketing@deque.com

At Deque Europe:
Ron Beenen, +31 6 28 26 78 54, ron.beenen@deque.com

At Deque APAC & MENA:
Abin Roy Choudhury, +91 9000189666, abin.choudhury@deque.com

Deque Systems

Deque Systems

Deque is the global leader in digital accessibility, helping the world’s top enterprises build inclusive products, services, and experiences and achieve lasting compliance. Recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, Deque delivers the industry’s most complete accessibility offering. The Axe platform, anchored by Axe-core, has more than 3 billion downloads and 875,000 installed extensions, making it the global standard for accessibility testing. As a pioneer of people-first accessibility, Deque applies a human-in-the-loop approach that blends expert insight with AI innovation to advance its mission of digital equality for all.

All Posts by Deque Systems Website
Tags:  mobile ,  mobile accessibility

The theme of axe-con is building accessible experiences. The conference’s mission is not just focused on bringing together the accessibility community and providing free content but on highlighting the organizations that are leaders in the field.

2024 is the fourth annual axe Awards, named after a well-known Deque open-source project called axe-core. We are proud to announce this year’s winners of the axe awards below so they are recognized for their outstanding work in accessibility. Please join us and the rest of the accessibility community in celebrating their efforts and advancements.

HSBC UK – Accessibility Culture Award

The success of an accessibility program hinges on creating an inclusive culture of accessibility at the organization. This year, we’re recognizing the prominent place that accessibility holds at HSBC UK with the Accessibility Culture Award. Their response is as follows:

We are humbled to be recognised for such a prestigious award and this recognition is a testament to the passion and determination within HSBC to be an organization for everyone irrespective of who they are.

HSBC is on a journey to becoming the world’s most digitally accessible bank. We want to be the bank of choice for disabled and neurodiverse customers and the employer of choice for disabled and neurodiverse staff. We want to make a difference in the communities we are part of and make the world more inclusive for everyone. We are excited about a number of initiatives that we have recently launched such as the Accessibility Hub being made publicly available, an award-winning free online learning platform, as well as our Train 1000 initiative to which over 100 companies globally have now signed up and our apprenticeship scheme specifically for disabled and neurodiverse candidates. At HSBC, we are proud of our progress but recognise we have more to do.

As an organization a culture of inclusion is business as usual for us and we are determined to use our international network, connectivity and brand to leave the world a better place than we found it.

GitHub – Accessibility at Scale Award

Deque is proud to award the 2024 Accessibility at Scale Award to GitHub. GitHub is the global home for all developers where over 100 million people, including developers from 90 of the Fortune 100 companies, build amazing things together across 420+ million repositories. Because of this, GitHub is in a unique position to accelerate accessibility across the technology industry. 

GitHub empowers people with disabilities to develop software and contribute to technologies that drive human progress. From site-wide color contrast improvements for the light and dark themes on github.com and keyboard support for the new global navigation feature to screen reader support for the new code search feature, GitHub consistently removes barriers that may block disabled developers. 

Recognizing that accessibility is not the only means of inclusion, GitHub also amplifies the voices of disabled developers by publishing the Coding Accessibility video series on their accessibility YouTube playlist and articles that feature developers with disabilities on the ReadMe Project. 

Finally, GitHub is redefining the discipline of software development by integrating AI across their platform and the most popular IDEs where developers work. We applaud GitHub for incorporating accessibility into its AI products from the beginning while helping all developers leverage AI to improve accessibility.

“At GitHub, we believe the best way to improve accessibility of technology is to empower people with disabilities to help build it.” – Ed Summers, Head of Accessibility at GitHub

Google – Longstanding Commitment to Accessibility Award

The Longstanding Commitment to Accessibility Award recognizes those organizations whose efforts in the field of accessibility have deep and long-standing roots. This year, the Longstanding Commitment to Accessibility Award goes to Google. Their response is as follows:

On behalf of our teams across Google, we want to express our deepest gratitude for awarding us the “Longstanding Commitment to Accessibility Award.” We are incredibly humbled and honored to receive this recognition.

Accessibility is a core principle and priority at Google, and this award is a wonderful testament to the dedication and passion of our teams across the company to build with and for the disability community. From engineers building inclusive products and features, to designers creating accessible experiences, to researchers pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and beyond, we are all committed to building a more accessible and equitable world.

“This award is not just a recognition of our past efforts; it serves as fuel that propels us forward. It motivates us to continue innovating and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the field of accessibility. We know that there is still work to be done, and we are committed to building a future where everyone can participate and thrive.” – Eve Andersson, Senior Director, Products for All

This award belongs not just to Google, but to the entire accessibility community – the advocates, developers, researchers, and users who continuously work to make technology more inclusive. We will continue to work diligently to make technology more accessible for everyone, including the disability community.

Jim Thatcher Lifetime Achievement Award

In addition to the axe awards, we were proud to announce the Jim Thatcher Lifetime Achievement Award. This award recognizes an individual with an outstanding lifetime achievement in the field of accessibility. For those of you who don’t know, Jim Thatcher was one of the early pioneers of web accessibility on the team at IBM that created the very first screen reader.

This year’s Jim Thatcher award goes to Jennison Asuncion. Jennison Asuncion is the Head of Accessibility Engineering Evangelism at LinkedIn as well as the co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). Asuncion has been working in the field of accessibility since 2006 and has championed major events in the industry such as the Accessibility Camp Toronto and the Accessibility Camp Bay Area. He is also Chair of the Board of Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and Vice-Chair of the GAAD Foundation.

Business Insider named Asuncion one of 30 “power players and rising stars” who would help newly appointed LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky lead the company. Furthermore, Asuncion received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, which was awarded to those who made “significant contributions” to the country, and the 2018 Stephen Garff Marriott Award from the American Foundation for the Blind. He was also named to Diversability’s inaugural D-30 Disability Impact List in 2020.

Watch Jennison’s response to receiving the Jim Thatcher Lifetime Achievement Award, what inspires him, and a word of encouragement to the accessibility community.

In Summary

There’s no way to commemorate all of the momentous work that organizations around the world are doing in the field of digital accessibility. We hope that this year’s axe Awards showcase the positive momentum that continues to shape the future of the industry.

 

Deque Systems

Deque Systems

Deque is the global leader in digital accessibility, helping the world’s top enterprises build inclusive products, services, and experiences and achieve lasting compliance. Recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, Deque delivers the industry’s most complete accessibility offering. The Axe platform, anchored by Axe-core, has more than 3 billion downloads and 875,000 installed extensions, making it the global standard for accessibility testing. As a pioneer of people-first accessibility, Deque applies a human-in-the-loop approach that blends expert insight with AI innovation to advance its mission of digital equality for all.

All Posts by Deque Systems Website
Tags:  news

HERNDON, VA – February 14, 2024 – Deque Systems Inc., the leading provider of web and mobile accessibility solutions, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against BrowserStack, Inc. and its affiliate companies for copyright infringement, breach of contract and false advertising. Given the scope of the theft, the case has significant ramifications for the accessibility software market and disability community more broadly. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Deque decided to pursue the case after learning that BrowserStack, a venture-capital-backed company valued at $4 billion, had entered the accessibility testing market in 2023 with a replica of axe DevTools® browser extension, part of Deque’s proprietary accessibility testing product. Similarities between the products reveal that the copying was intentional, pervasive and blatant.

“The facts here are simple: BrowserStack engineers licensed our axe DevTools® browser extension, accessed our code, blatantly copied it into their product, and then tried to market their stolen product as better than ours,” said Dylan Barrell, Deque’s Chief Technology Officer. “We invested decades of work and tens of millions of dollars to build an innovative product that enables true accessibility for people with disabilities. We’re outraged by the actions of BrowserStack. Digital Equality for all is built on innovation, not theft.”

For nearly 25 years, Deque has pursued its mission of Digital Equality by offering tools, services and training to help developers ensure their pages and products are fully accessible to people with disabilities. The company has helped enterprise-level organizations – including large U.S. banks, technology companies, retailers, airlines, hotel chains, insurance companies, and government agencies – ensure the accessibility of their sites and mobile apps through testing software like axe DevTools®.

Funded by the sale of its proprietary software products and consulting services, Deque also provides its award-winning accessibility rules engine, axe-core®, as free, open-source software. It has been downloaded over 1 billion times and is viewed as the de facto standard for accessibility testing by Google, Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice, among others.

“Ultimately, one of the key reasons we decided to pursue litigation is so that Deque can continue its longstanding mission of serving and supporting the disability community and ensuring a level, accessible playing field for all,” said Preety Kumar, Founder and CEO of Deque. “We offered our axe-core® software for free because we never want to see accessibility issues stand in the way of opportunity, but we depend on our proprietary product sales to fund this important work. BrowserStack’s theft of our IP has jeopardized our critical mission of Digital Equality.”

Beyond its innovative technology offerings, Deque has been a respected voice in the disability community for years. It has provided financial support to disability rights advocacy organizations, scholarships for people with disabilities, and has consistently worked to raise the salary floor and create high-quality employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Deque also hosts axe-con, the largest accessibility conference in the industry, as a free and virtual resource for the accessibility community.

Deque has requested that the court recognize that BrowserStack infringed Deque’s copyrights, breached its contractual obligations provided in the Terms of Use and license, and made false and misleading statements in its advertising of this stolen product. The company is also requesting that BrowserStack immediately stop all sales and advertising for their product and provide financial compensation for the loss of sales Deque may have suffered due to BrowserStack’s copyright infringement and false advertising, among other remedies.

Deque is represented in the case by law firm Dykema.

About Deque Systems

Deque (pronounced dee-cue) is a web accessibility software and services company, and our mission is Digital Equality. We believe everyone, regardless of their ability, should have equal access to the information, services, applications, and everything else on the web. We work with enterprise-level businesses and organizations to ensure that their sites and mobile apps are accessible. Installed in [global_text name=”installed-extensions”] browsers and with [global_text name=”audit-projects”] audit projects completed, Deque is the industry standard.

Axe ® is a registered trademark of Deque Systems, Inc.

Media Contacts

Lisa Seidenberg, Greentarget, 312-252-4108, lseidenberg@greentarget.com

Deque Systems

Deque Systems

Deque is the global leader in digital accessibility, helping the world’s top enterprises build inclusive products, services, and experiences and achieve lasting compliance. Recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, Deque delivers the industry’s most complete accessibility offering. The Axe platform, anchored by Axe-core, has more than 3 billion downloads and 875,000 installed extensions, making it the global standard for accessibility testing. As a pioneer of people-first accessibility, Deque applies a human-in-the-loop approach that blends expert insight with AI innovation to advance its mission of digital equality for all.

All Posts by Deque Systems Website

Governments around the world mandate an accessible web experience for regulated industries, and you can be fined heavily for non-compliance. In the United States, the Department of Justice has the authority to seek civil penalties for a first violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) at $96,384 and up to $192,768 for each subsequent violation. And in the event a site is not subject to regulation, it may well be tested in court. Since 2018, more than 4,000 ADA-based digital accessibility lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts each year from 2021 to 2023 (targeting companies both large and small). Many thousands more companies receive a demand letter that leads to a settlement to avoid a trial.

When you recognize that an inaccessible website excludes your users from making transactions, you start to see the barriers inherent to the design and coding. Is your content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust? Failure to deliver text, graphics, videos, and essential forms to all your visitors is the basis for this whole discussion.

You know about the potential for legal consequences. Yet there are hidden risks that can affect your company if you fail to conform to website accessibility standards. These risks may even add up to greater costs than government fines or civil litigation. If you decide to ignore web accessibility requirements, you should be prepared to accept these hidden risks as well.

Inaccessible Websites Can Harm the Content Owner

1. Brand Damage Accessibility error

People with disabilities represent a growing demographic. As much as 27% of the U.S. population has a disability, and the voice of persons with disabilities is gaining momentum. Add to this number an aging customer base that means more and more of your website visitors will have physical limitations. Age is a trend that will not decline. Companies that willfully ignore the needs of these groups are sure to suffer damage to their brands and reputations.

2. Missed Market Opportunities

Similarly, if your website isn’t accessible, you risk missing out on opportunities to gain more customers and increase revenue. Competitors who have accessible websites will easily reap the increasing numbers of persons with disabilities—simply because those customers can’t use your website.

On the other hand, if you’re one of the first in your industry to become web accessible, you can win customers who couldn’t use your competitors’ inaccessible websites. Why limit your audience?

3. Avoidance Tailspin

Many companies choose to throw money at a problem, hoping for a quick fix over a real and sustainable solution. They hire lawyers to deal with legal claims and spend hundreds of hours diverting their staff to field consumer complaints. Because these patchwork solutions draw significant company resources, investing in a permanent solution seems too costly.

So these companies continue to deal with legal problems and new consumer complaints in the same manner. They risk entering a tailspin that demands more time and money, and they move farther away from the real solution that could end the constant problem management. Instead, consider the benefits of shifting left, or building accessibility into your product development, which can reduce those unhappy visitors and set you on a path that excludes no one.

4. A Weaker Organization

With the avoidance tailspin comes the risk of opportunity cost. By dumping money into costly patchwork solutions, companies risk the opportunity to invest budget into product and process improvements–improvements that could lead to better sales and a healthier business.

5. Less Qualified Employees

Companies that don’t have an accessible infrastructure take personnel risks as well. The marketplace is loaded with bright, talented individuals with disabilities. But if these job candidates can’t even apply because your system isn’t accessible, your company has lost the opportunity to become a stronger organization, and you risk settling for lesser talent.

Key Takeaways

Making your digital products accessible simply makes good business sense. Achieving accessibility benefits everyone, it’s viable, and it’s less costly than taking the risk of willful inaccessibility.

Whether it’s brand damage or missed market opportunities, avoidance tailspin, or weakening the organization, even excluding the full talent pool — or all of the above — ignoring is risky business.

Next Steps

Phil Daquila

Phil Daquila

Phil Daquila is a subject matter expert coaching web development teams in all roles and consulting on how to meet the needs of all users. After a few decades producing magazines, books, and documentary videos, Phil found a new passion in digital accessibility in 2016. At UNC-Chapel Hill, he trained site owners in practicing inclusive design and coding. At Deque since 2019, Phil is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility with IAAP and the kiosk lead for the standards and methodology team. Phil hosts the Deque Coaching Book Club.

All Posts by Phil Daquila
Tags:  Web Accessibility ,  Website Compliance