By Janus Boye
Gavin Colborne from UK-based software vendor Little Forest on stage at the Boye Aarhus 24 conference. Photo: Ib Sørensen
While CMS vendors have historically failed to meet accessibility needs, we have now started seeing large corporations concerned about ensuring their digital platforms are accessible.
With the arrival of more and stricter legislation, and importantly also enforcement, there is growing pressure to improve, with accessibility now a central factor in procurement decisions. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is coming, very soon, and it is already having a big impact on businesses around the world. In Ireland it is being implemented with the threat of prison time!
In a recent members' call we were joined by Gavin Colborne from Little Forest in the UK, who told us more about what's happening with digital accessibility right now and what's around the corner waiting for us next year.
Among the key points in the call was the growing recognition that accessibility is not just a requirement for legal compliance, it’s the right thing to do and a vital component of creating digital products that serve diverse and inclusive user bases.
We started the conversation with an update on the state of digital accessibility.
What’s new in digital accessibility?
Sadly, we haven’t made much progress when it comes to digital accessibility in the past two decades. Gavin opened with a photo of him and Lucy Greco who is blind and works as an accessibility evangelist for the University of California, Berkeley. She also joined a peer group meeting in Sacramento back in October, and shared how the threat of sanctions has finally made some of the Silicon Valley giants, like Amazon, prioritise building better and more accessible solutions.
Besides the legal updates, Gavin also highlighted how progress is being made when it comes to advocacy for the topic. There are many more activists, influencers and organisations today promoting discussions on the rights of users with disabilities and the importance of accessibility.
There’s also progress when it comes to technology and even AI might help. We are starting to see useful examples of GenAI being used to describe images and create good video captioning. Gavin mentioned how AI can significantly enhance digital accessibility by providing features like real-time content summarisation, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech conversion. AI can also assist in automating accessibility checks, thus reducing manual efforts and improving compliance with accessibility standards like WCAG.
Finally, there’s also updated standards, most notably with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 that has been released and also made a legal enforcement in the UK.
Let’s move to the elephant in the room: The EAA.
A closer look at the European Accessibility Act
The EAA will apply from 28 June 2025 and aims to standardize accessibility requirements across the EU, similar to how GDPR did it for data privacy. EAA introduces accessibility requirements for in-scope products and services.
The key objective is to ensure that products and services are accessible to all individuals, especially empowering those with disabilities and it applies to various sectors, including banking, transportation, e-commerce, public services, and websites in general.
Gavin shared how there are three core requirements under the EAA:
Digital Accessibility Standards: Aligns with WCAG 2.1 AA as the primary standard
Product and Service Design: Requires built-in accessibility in websites, apps, and other public-facing technologies
Focus Areas: Visual content, navigation, text alternatives, and user interface adjustments.
The business implications are substantial and like stated in the opening, Ireland has taken to a strict implementation. To quote from this Forbes article Ireland Web Accessibility: Everything You Need To Know:
By June 28, 2025, organizations must fully comply with the European Accessibility Act (EAA) or face fines ranging from €5,000 to €60,000, up to 18 months in prison, or both.
The EAA applies to both EU-based and non-EU businesses selling in the EU. Comply to avoid fines and restrictions. Already some economic impact are being seen with costs due to design modifications and ongoing accessibility monitoring. Still, there’s also plenty of opportunities as accessible design widens your customer base and fosters a positive brand image.
Organisations with revenues under 2 million euros or small ones with less than 10 employees are exempt. Consensus in the call was also that the EAA will not, at least initially, apply to the interfaces of the digital platforms, like CMS, although making them accessible should be a priority, as it’s increasingly becoming a selection criteria, as seen in the W3C CMS selection process.
How do you make accessibility a success in 2025?
Where GDPR championed “privacy be design”, EAA is championing “design for all,” and Gavin’s advice was for all to take that to heart for their 2025 work.
To make accessibility successful in your organisation, Gavin recommends to start with finding friends and building an internal community around the topic. Communicate to your leadership how vital it is to gain support and keep in mind that digital accessibility is now essential in the same way physical accessibility is in all products and services.
One of the useful posters created by the UK Home Office - this one on designing for users with low vision. Click the poster to download as PDF.
Besides the EAA, Gavin also mentioned the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects people with disabilities from discrimination. Gavin mentioned how the (ADA) has been updated to tie digital accessibility directly to WCAG 2.1 guidelines. This update is significant for public sector organisations, including government websites and education institutions, as it clarifies compliance expectations for digital services. It will come into full effect by April 2026.
Back in April this year, the US Department of Justice updated Title II of the ADA with specific requirements about how to make sure that web content and mobile applications (apps) are accessible to people with disabilities. Read more: Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps Provided by State and Local Government Entities: A Small Entity Compliance Guide.
When it comes to designing for accessibility, the UK Home Office has the stated goal of making exceptional services for everyone. As they say:
“Understanding accessibility means we can build services that work for everyone, whatever their access need.”
The UK Home Office has created a set of useful posters (PDF) which show how you can make your service accessible for different access needs.
Finally, Gavin closed with a call to action: What’s your organisation doing to improve accessibility? Take action and keep championing the topic.
Learn more about the state of digital accessibility
So, how far have we really come? Chapter 10 in the Web Almanac covers accessibility and it is worth a closer study. The brief summary in just two bullets:
Accessibility scores are an important tool, but people familiar with Goodhart’s Law will know the danger of a measure becoming a target.
Looking at the most common errors with most improved Lighthouse tests, it is possible to see which parts of the Lighthouse audit improved the most. Although far from perfect, we are seeing advancements.
For background and more on the topic, Gavin also shared an update five years ago. See Accessibility update towards 2020.
Finally, you can also download the slides (PDF) or even lean back and enjoy the recording from the call below.