On 16 May 2024, the digital industry celebrated the 13th Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The day is designed to prompt conversations about digital inclusion and accessibility. Across the world, organisations come together to acknowledge, discuss, debate and often celebrate the progress that has been made to ensure as many people as possible have the opportunities to access digital experiences.
The BIMA inclusive design council marked the day by holding a virtual roundtable, ‘The future of accessibility’, welcoming a broad range of experience and representation in the digital sector. Attendees included people at the very start of their inclusive journey looking to learn more, right through to those in a position of contributing guidance to WCAG 3.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
While under Chatham House Rules, we discussed and shared ideas on these four key opening questions:
The roundtable, hosted and led by Kevin Mar-Molinero, was full of energy, discussion and knowledge-sharing.
Throughout the event, it was evident that people within the industry are feeling much more confident to share personal insights to help guide conversations away from assumptions and towards understanding real examples of lived experiences. People are not only sharing insights when prompted by a specific project, but also proactively contributing to everyday meetings with peers and clients.
From a technical perspective, there is still some work to be done on educating clients about the difference between a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and their relationship with making a product inclusive. A VPAT does not imply meeting AA WCAG criteria, and having either, or both, does not imply you have built an inclusive digital product. Notably, we also acknowledged that WCAG criteria do not reflect neurodiversity considerations and that the topic will be drafted in for WCAG 3.0.
In 2024, there is no excuse for a business not to invest in embedding inclusive design principles into projects, with benefits extending to reducing environmental impact, being more cost effective for creators and service users, but also progression of society.
As a closing statement, as shared by an attendee: “Let’s take the conversation from ‘it makes it compliant’, and steer it towards the simple but poignant human-centred message as it should be: ‘it helps’.”
If you’re interested in finding out more about inclusive design and creativity, BIMA is holding an event with last year’s BIMA Inclusive Design award winner The Mill on 12 June 2024.
Sign up for a place at the BIMA event