History of global accessibility awareness day
HISTORY OF GLOBAL ACCESSIBILITY AWARENESS DAY
Established in 2012, Global Accessibility Awareness Day aims to have conversations and educate people about accessibility. It all started with a single blog post authored by Joe Devon, a web developer located in Los Angeles, who came up with the concept. A post on this blog served as inspiration for Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
As a result of their collaboration, Devon and Jennison Asuncion founded Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Asuncion, an accessibility expert from Toronto, discovered Devon’s blog article entirely by chance, owing to a tweet from him that he came across while surfing the internet. After reading it, he immediately contacted Devon via Twitter and the two of them teamed up to bring the event to fruition by utilizing their large and separate networks.
Per the website for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, the goal is to get everyone talking about digital (web-based) access/inclusion and persons with different disabilities, as well as to encourage others to think about it and learn about it.
Local Global Accessibility Awareness Day events may demonstrate how people with disabilities use the web and digital products with assistive technologies, or they may provide assistance to people developing technological products to ensure that they consider the needs of people with specific disabilities when designing their products.
GLOBAL ACCESSIBILITY AWARENESS DAY TIMELINE
1973
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794 d) mandates federal agencies to make their electronic and information technologies accessible to everyone, whether they’re employees or members of the public.
1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act
George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act into law on July 2,6 making it a federal law for the fair and equal treatment of people with disabilities.
2010
The Communications and Video Accessibility Act
It is the goal of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) to ensure that legislation written in the 1980s and 1990s is updated to accommodate 21st-century technology.
2021
Global Accessibility Awareness Day
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Global Accessibility Awareness Day is started to change the mindset of technology and digital product design to make accessibility a fundamental necessity.
History of Global Accessibility Awareness Day
This day was first observed in 2015, and interesting came about due to the publication of a blog post written by a web developer by the name of Joe Devon. The blog post, featured on mysqltalk.wordpress.com, talked about how accessibility was low on the list of important things when creating a website – and how this needed to change.
After seeing the post, Jennison Asuncion contacted Joe to talk about web accessibility. Together, they joined forces to create this day and have since become big names in making the internet more accessible for everyone.
How to Observe Global Accessibility Awareness Day
There are plenty of events, both physical and virtual, which are organized by the people behind Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
There is also plenty of information available online regarding how to make your website more accessible, and webinars to watch regarding the challenges and solutions of making your site accessible to all.
Another great way to observe it, if you are a developer or designer, is to try to navigate a site you are working on without using a mouse or trackpad. Or take the time to use a screen-reader and make sure you’re creating something which can still be used by disabled users.
Make sure to talk about the subject on social media and amongst friends, or get the conversation going at work – especially if you work in the digital sphere.
Ultimately, the goal is to make all big websites on the net easy to access and simple to use. And with days like this in your calendar, that goal could be achieved sooner than we think!
