The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is on December 3rd and Disability Employment Awareness Month comes around each year in October, but accessibility and inclusion aren’t just political buzzwords we hear bandied about on the news and by political pundits, these topics affect our coworkers, friends, family, and many of us every day.
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Not only are there nearly a half dozen commemorations and awareness events each month, every day, each one of us can do more to make sure that the content we create is open to a variety of users with varying levels of ability and ways to accomplish tasks.
Where we notice that functionality does not exist, we can work with vendors to include accessibility features in future product releases. The rise of artificial intelligence has provided us with an opportunity to level the playing field and we should take advantage of it.
And it’s not just for a niche market of users or only a very small special interest group that will benefit. In a January 2024 article, Axios reported that 25% percent of US adults have a disability and worldwide, it is estimated that 1.3 billion people have at least one significant disability. The article goes on to point out some exciting technological developments that target pain points experienced by those touched by disability or differences from the "mainstream" experience.
Where there are already tools in place, we should use them. As Carole Martinez explains in her article, Accessibility for All: Why Removing Barriers Benefits Us All, everyone benefits when we use inclusive design.
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There are several resources available to help us understand the basics of being inclusive when creating using technology:
Anyone can learn about Section 508 rules for making technology accessible by visiting the General Services Administration’s Section 508 training site.
Government employees at the federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial level can join the Section 508 IT Accessibility Community for additional resources.
On its Accessibility Online training site, the Great Lakes ADA Center provides monthly webinars on various aspects of accessibility. Past topics include how to create accessible Office documents with Word and PowerPoint.
Microsoft Learn Accessibility Fundamentals is just one of the many resources available on the Microsoft site. On March 7, they will hold a free day-long Ability Summit.
Other vendors and organizations offer courses to assist us with considering accessibility for particular products and use cases.
One example is the Digital Accessibility Foundations from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
If you have an EdX account, they also offer a number of online courses to learn more.
If you discover a helpful resource, share it with others!
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