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Attended the Hassell Inclusion 'Trends in Digital Accessibility for 2024' webinar last night. A phenomenal amount to take in, and absolutely packed with gems about accessibility and a good overview of the tech trends this year. The points that I felt were significant:
- 96.3% of website home pages *still* have a11y issues, but there appears to be more buy-in from larger organisations to address this: a11y is no longer seen as a constraint, but more of a KPI - nice 'buy-in' toolkit available via https://www.hassellinclusion.com/hi-hub/buy-in-toolkit/
- The older (boomer) audience not really being addressed from an a11y perspective, despite it being a huge market. Make tech easy to use!
- Those who cannot afford the latest tech also being sidelined. In particular, with bricks and mortar shops diminishing, commerce should look at making their systems more widely accessible to older tech.
- AI clearly everywhere, although interesting point raised about 'Augmented Mentality': generating reality, in real time, in the format you need. Particularly important to address neurodivergent needs (hopefully in WCAG 3)
- Eye tracking looks to become a little more mainstream (and usable), despite current financial barriers with products such as Apple's Vision Pro.
- More work needed in kiosk interfaces (think McDonalds...)
- The European Accessibility Act is likely to mandate WCAG2.1 for private sector websites (although not sure if UK will adopt this). Dangerous precedent in US where web developer (not the product owner) currently being sued by a user for lack of 508 compliance. Pay attention devs!
- Stock (=> website) images starting to be more inclusive in their representation of disabilities
- Things for devs and designers to look at this year: Bento grids, ShadowDOM and Typescript. And keep loving those CMSs (including Drupal obviously)
There was an awful lot more discussed, and a pause button would have helped! Thanks Hassell Inclusion so much for providing this overview and all the great resources. Making the world a better place.
The webinar should be on their resources hub by the beginning of February.