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Happy 15th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)! Or, should we say, GAAD afternoon!

Seriously, what a special day this is, as everyone from lifetime advocates to first-time explorers are coming together around the world to create awareness about accessibility. Thank you all for being a part of this.

Here at Deque, we’ve been having an amazing time with our three free digital accessibility training sessions. We’ve welcomed guests in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, in Europe, and in North America.

Here is just a quick recap of our three events:

Digital accessibility fundamentals training: Europe

Turnout for this event was incredible. Thousands of registrants, from over 30 different countries, ranging all the way from Argentina, Austria, and Belgium to Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom! Geography wasn’t the only diversity on display, either. We had guests representing more than 30 different job roles, running the gamut from Accessibility Specialists, Admin Assistants, Business Analysts, and Developers to Solution Consultants, Teachers, UX Writers, and Web Content Officers.

One of the things we enjoy most about these sessions is all the questions that come in, and all the feedback we receive. Getting a response like the one below just makes it really clear how important it is that we come together to learn from one another as often as we can:

“Thanks for the demo, Patrick. While I’ve recently had JAWS training in my role, testing websites as a sighted person doesn’t quite convey the same experience. Seeing a blind user navigate a website using JAWS was incredibly impactful and really brought home just how critical it is to ensure our websites are fully accessible.”

Patrick, in this case, is Patrick Sturdivant, Vice President and Principal Strategy Consultant at Deque. As an experienced accessibility professional who is blind, he is uniquely positioned to offer powerful insight and experience. (If you haven’t read his articles on traveling internationally as a person with a disability, you’re in for a very entertaining education!). Patrick was joined by Ron Beenen (Director of European Business Development, Deque), and Natalie Russell (Enterprise Customer Success Manager, Deque).

In addition to the above, we had some other fantastic feedback as well. One individual who was clearly gearing up for an important accessibility conversation wrote in the chat: “Thank you so much, all, I really enjoyed that, and thank you in advance for support on the overlay battle!” Another attendee added a lovely note of appreciation for event host Natalie Russell, Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Deque: “Thank you all, and thank you, Natalie, for your heart-warming energy 🙂 Have a great day!”

We think the award for the cleverest attendee comment should probably go to this one: “Oh my GAAD! What a great session!”:

Over the course of two hours, our Deque experts shared a wealth of insights and information, and their unique perspectives combined to offer a comprehensive look at the foundations of digital accessibility as a practice.

Whether it was Patrick reminding everyone that everyone can make a difference …

“You don’t have to be an Apple or a Microsoft to have a website that’s inclusive of everyone. You just have to have a little thought.” —Patrick Sturdivant, Vice President and Principal Strategy Consultant, Deque

… or Ron Beenen encouraging cross-functional awareness and action …

“Accessibility is an organization-wide topic, and it’s really about organizational change.” —Ron Beenen, Director of European Business Development, Deque

… or Natalie Russell providing clear tactical guidance …

“The combination of automated tools, manual expert testing, and real user feedback is how you save money, time, and, more importantly, build products that truly work for everyone.” —Natalie Russell, Enterprise Customer Success Manager, Deque

… it was a session full of meaningful learning for all.

Digital accessibility fundamentals training: North America

She probably won’t want us to call her name out specifically—she’s just that kind of team player!—but the person responsible for all the behind-the-scenes work to make these events happen had a delightful summary of the North America training session: “North American GAAD went smashingly!”

With thousands of people registered, we certainly can’t argue with her. And they came from all over the region—all the way from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Anchorage, Alaska, and Atlanta, Georgia to Toronto, Ontario, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Tyler, Texas.

And with over 100 questions posed by attendees, our Deque experts were very busy. Patrick Sturdivant, mentioned above, was joined for this session by Michael Harshbarger, Strategic Accessibility Training Consultant here at Deque.

As with the Europe session, we had some great comments in the chat, and we agree we’ve got another clear winner for the most creative comment: “My capacity glass is empty today. Please POUR me some accessibility!”

As to the perspectives shared by our experts, it’s safe to say they took the “fundamental training” mantra seriously, delivering foundational insights such as this one from Patrick:

“Digital accessibility is all about ensuring that all people of all abilities can use, understand, operate, and consume digital content, no matter what their ability is.”

Or this revealing observation from Michael:

“Guess what the number one use piece of assistive technology is in the world? This thing right here, the keyboard.”

Part of what makes sessions like these so valuable is that they’re geared toward practical guidance. For example, one attendee asked, “Can you describe how you like Alt Text to be descriptive?” Patrick’s response was, “Don’t try to please everyone. You will never please everyone with your Alt Text. But any Alt Text is appreciated over no Alt Text.” Coming from someone who is blind and uses assistive technology, and is also an accessibility professional, that’s real-world guidance you can really use.

In addition to covering the fundamentals, the conversations did expand into some broader territory. At one point, Michael discussed where digital accessibility sits as a business priority, stating that, “Accessibility is no different than security or performance … you wouldn’t do security once and say we’re done.” This is something Deque founder and CEO Preety Kumar recently wrote about in an article titled Elevating digital accessibility from optional to essential. In that piece, she wrote: “The vision is there. The momentum is real. And now, we have the tools and the processes to make it easy—to create a world where digital accessibility is simply how we build.”

As is often the case when discussing digital accessibility these days, artificial intelligence (AI) came up in the conversations, and it was here that Patrick offered perhaps the most memorable guidance: “Respect AI, understand AI, manage AI. But remember, you’re in control, and you’re still responsible for your AI code to be accessible.”

Digital accessibility fundamentals training: APAC

Our APAC digital accessibility fundamentals training session featured many of the same hallmarks as our other two sessions, including geographic diversity (Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand), role variety (from Software Testers and Disability Inclusion Associates to QA experts and Product Designers), and tons of registrants. We’re very excited to see momentum continuing to build in the region.

Our Deque host was Aparna Pasi, our VP of Professional Services. She was joined by Gerry Neustatl, the founder of AccessUX. Gerry is an accessibility leader with 20+ years of experience leading digital transformation across the enterprise and government sectors. Prior to AccessUX, he contributed 10 years to shaping accessibility and inclusive design culture at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), home to some of Australia’s most trusted media brands.

Needless to say, we were thrilled to have Gerry join us on behalf of our registered attendees!

We also had some very valuable contributions from members of our community. When learning about accessibility, it’s vital to hear from people who have disabilities. Jamie Knight is a research engineer from the BBC who identifies as a person with autism. He had the following to share:

“When we come to a web page, there’s a certain amount of energy we have. And if we can’t complete what we’ve got to do with the energy we have at that moment—our capacity so to speak—it simply won’t get done. So the idea of an obstacle course or some sort of challenge to overcome is a very good analogy.”

David Fazio, who is the founder of the Helix Opportunity, a disability-related business and organizational development consultancy firm that was funded by the California Department of Rehabilitation, has a traumatic brain injury (or TBI). He shared his observations about how he experiences the web:

“It gets to the point where I get so frustrated that if I can’t find my way around navigating a web page to see where things are, it sort of kind of shuts my brain down and kind of makes it hard for me to operate psychologically. So what I’ll do is I’ll step away from it and I’ll say, ‘Okay, I’ll do this later.’ But then the short-term memory loss kicks in, and I don’t remember to do it. And sometimes I’ll miss deadlines to apply for something, to register for a conference, a sale to buy an item. So if that happens, that organization, that company, that business loses out.”

As with our other sessions, the focus was on fundamentals, and in addition to the human element, that also means data. Here are some important global numbers we shared during our APAC session:

Over 1.3 billion people, that is 20% of the world’s population (1 in 6 people), self-identify as having a disability.
Over 253 million people worldwide have some form of blindness or visual disability (3.2% of the world’s population).
466 million people have deafness or hearing loss (6%).
About 200 million people have a cognitive disability (2.6%).
75 million people use a wheelchair daily.

Of course, with this being a session for APAC, this is perhaps the most important statistic of them all: 690 million people in APAC have disabilities.

Ultimately, GAAD is about awareness. As to why we chose to participate by hosting these training sessions, it’s because we hope to build a bridge from awareness to action, helping people convert what they learn into what they want to do. While the global accessibility community has made huge strides in the previous decades, our work is not finished, and the more allies and advocates we can empower, the more quickly we can achieve our shared mission of digital equality.

Which is why a quote like this is so powerful: “It is always exciting to join an event like this. I’m looking to contribute to this field.”

It may seem like a simple, straightforward sentiment, but to us, that second sentence is magic. If there’s one thing we hope these sessions produce, it’s momentum.

And so we say to every training session attendee, thank you! Thank you, and please do contribute. Contribute your passion and your awareness. Contribute your knowledge and your desire to learn. Contribute with your heart and your mind. We need you. The global accessibility community needs you. People with disabilities need you.

The world needs you.

Happy GAAD, and we’ll look forward to celebrating year 16 with you this time next year!

Deque Systems

Deque is the global leader in digital accessibility, helping the world’s top enterprises build inclusive products, services, and experiences and achieve lasting compliance. Recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, Deque delivers the industry’s most complete accessibility offering. The Axe platform, anchored by Axe-core, has more than 4 billion downloads and 800,000 installed extensions, making it the global standard for accessibility testing. As a pioneer of people-first accessibility, Deque applies a human-in-the-loop approach that blends expert insight with AI innovation to advance its mission of digital equality for all.

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For many federally regulated organizations in Canada, the next Accessible Canada Act (ACA) annual progress report is due June 1, 2026. That date is approaching quickly, and this is more than just a reporting exercise.

If your organization has been proactive about digital accessibility, you should be right on track. But for organizations that have delayed accessibility work, there is limited time left to demonstrate meaningful progress before reporting season arrives.

Fortunately, you don’t need to solve everything by June 1.

In this post, I’ll help you understand what’s due and what your best options are for meeting the requirements. If you need guidance, reach out to Deque today and schedule a strategic consultation.

Progress reports

Under the ACA, progress reports are public-facing documents. Among the requirements, organizations are expected to show:

what barriers they identified
what feedback they received
what actions they took
what measurable progress they’ve made

That creates real pressure for organizations that are still relying on one-time audits, fragmented remediation efforts, or reactive accessibility practices.

Organizations that have not operationalized accessibility may struggle to demonstrate sustained progress in a credible way. This means considering everything from procurement, design, and development to testing, content, and governance.

Any gaps will be increasingly visible to regulators, customers, employees, and disability communities.

What you can do right now

Being truly prepared for ACA reporting means not scrambling to explain accessibility gaps at the last minute. Instead, your organization must be able to clearly demonstrate where barriers exist, what progress has been made, who is accountable, and how accessibility improvements are being sustained over time. While this process can be complex, qualified digital accessibility experts can help you gather the information you need, assemble and publish your report, and notify the Accessibility Commissioner using the My Accessibility Portal, as required by the Act.

Deque has worked with organizations across regulated industries to help assess accessibility maturity, prioritize high-impact barriers, and build practical, scalable accessibility programs that can withstand growing regulatory and public scrutiny.

This reporting deadline is an opportunity to make sure you are moving in the right direction. Now is the time to have a conversation about your organization’s path to ACA readiness. With the right strategic guidance, you can meet your short-term requirements while laying the foundation for a proactive approach to digital accessibility that will ensure long-term compliance.

Schedule a strategic consultation with Deque today.

Glenda Sims

Glenda Sims is the Chief Information Accessibility Officer at Deque, where she shares her expertise and passion for the open web with government organizations, educational institutions, and companies ranging in size from small businesses to large enterprise organizations. Glenda is an advisor and co-founder of AIR-University (Accessibility Internet Rally) and AccessU. She serves as an accessibility consultant, judge, and trainer for Knowbility, an organization whose mission is to support the independence of people with disabilities by promoting the availability of barrier-free IT. In 2010 Glenda co-authored the book InterACT with Web Standards: A holistic approach to Web Design.

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Tags: Accessible Canada Act

After more than 700 interviews and conversations with industry experts, as well as input from an expert advisory board, the final decisions have been made, and the 2026 Forbes Accessibility 200 list is now official.

Deque is honored to be highlighted among this incredible group of innovators and impact-makers. We are the only digital accessibility solution provider to be consecutively named for a second year.

We’re especially proud given the list’s emphasis on “the size of impact over the widest breadth of people.” With a final list that “includes companies and nonprofits based in 24 countries across six continents,” it’s clear that accessibility is truly a global movement, and we’re thrilled to be featured alongside the incredible organizations and individuals advancing this mission.

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on today’s accessibility landscape is a central theme in the editorial commentary accompanying the list. In the article Meet The Accessibility 200—And Their AI Tools, deputy editor Heather Newman notes that “trailblazing use of AI is all over the Forbes Accessibility 200.”

Neil Barnett, Microsoft’s Chief Accessibility Officer, is quoted in that article: “AI is moving so fast. I think what gets me excited is that it’s going to be a lot easier to just make accessible, easy-to-use products out of the gate.”

This observation echoes a conversation Deque CEO and founder Preety Kumar recently had with Microsoft’s Jenny Lay Flurrie at Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference. In that conversation, Jenny expressed her belief that “we’re really hitting the cusp of what is possible with this era of AI.” Preety mirrors this enthusiasm, stating that she is “very optimistic about using AI to increase automation, so developers can make it easy to incorporate accessibility into their development workflow.”

You can see an excerpt of their full conversation here:

AI, automation, and the EAA: The future of accessibility with Preety Kumar and Jenny Lay Flurrie.

Notably, this year’s list is double the size of the 2025 edition. As Forbes explained back in February, when they began the nominations process, “The reaction was so strong around the globe that we are expanding this year’s list to 200.” In acknowledging this year’s final honorees, Alan Schwarz, Forbes Assistant Managing Editor, writes that accessibility has “evolved from legal mandate, to social imperative, to now something that speaks to an entirely new audience: smart business.”

Just under a year ago, on the eve of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) coming into effect, Preety Kumar wrote the following:

“With the EAA redefining the global legal landscape—and with AI and automation rewriting the rules of what’s technologically possible—we have a historic opportunity to fully establish digital accessibility as an essential business practice.”

With the publication of the Forbes Accessibility 200 list today, we have ample evidence that we are actively realizing this opportunity. It is indeed a new era for accessibility.

As we have for over two decades, Deque continues to drive innovation forward. We are proud to rank among the world’s most impactful accessibility champions, and we look forward to supporting every organization that is working to make the digital world a universally accessible place.

Deque Systems

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New forces are reshaping the global digital accessibility landscape. Most notably, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has now been in effect for a year, and we’ve already seen far-reaching regulatory and legal developments as a result. Simultaneously, AI coding assistants continue to use inaccessible content to generate even more content, leading to rapidly swelling volumes of inaccessible code.

In this time of great opportunity and equally great challenge, Deque and Eficode are announcing a strategic partnership to provide a practical, low-friction path to EAA compliance that does not require slowing down delivery or rebuilding workflows.

“This new era of digital accessibility demands an approach that combines the speed and scale of AI with human expertise. Eficode has the highest number of IAAP CPWA-certified professionals of any organization in the European Economic Area and supports its customers across the full software and service lifecycle. This is a natural and impactful partnership, and we’re excited to bring our collective expertise to new and existing Deque and Eficode customers.” —Preety Kumar, CEO and founder, Deque

Achieving digital accessibility compliance in the EAA era is a complex effort that requires collaboration among stakeholders across many teams and disciplines, including Chief Technology Officers and Engineering VPs, DevOps leads, compliance officers, and digital accessibility leads. Through this new partnership, organizations can achieve sustainable accessibility at scale by combining Eficode’s user-centered design and DevOps expertise with Deque’s innovative accessibility technology.

By embedding automated, AI-powered accessibility testing into continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines—and embracing a shift-left approach where testing is performed earlier in the design and development process—organizations can catch up to 80% of defects before production.

As a leading global provider of DevOps, AI-driven software development, and human-centered design services, Eficode combines modern technology, strong DevOps practices, and deep expertise in accessibility and user experience. Deque, meanwhile, is recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, and for delivering the industry’s most complete accessibility offering.

“By combining Deque’s industry-leading accessibility tools with Eficode’s highly skilled experts, we help organizations shift from reactive fixes to proactive prevention, and from mere compliance to genuinely inclusive digital experiences, embedding accessibility from design through continuous delivery.”—Jussi Rämänen, VP, Software and Applications, Eficode

Together with Deque, Eficode is helping teams at companies across Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway implement accessibility testing technology to ensure they meet the needs of their audiences, the goals of their businesses, and the relevant global regulatory requirements.

An essential component of how Deque advances its mission of digital equality is our global network of trusted partners, each committed to delivering the highest standards of digital accessibility excellence. Thanks to our new partnership with Eficode, we are better positioned than ever to support not only existing Eficode and Deque customers but any organization across the EU that wants to reduce EAA compliance risk and lower the cost of accessibility remediation while maintaining delivery velocity.

As global digital accessibility continues to evolve rapidly, disruptions will persist—including the very real legal risks posed by inaccessible, AI-generated code. The best way to ensure your organization stays ahead is to work with trusted, innovative leaders who can help you credibly demonstrate to regulators, customers, and stakeholders that accessibility is built into your software delivery process by design.

We’re inviting every organization that needs to achieve EAA compliance, including all current Eficode customers, to reach out today for strategic digital accessibility guidance.

Deque Systems

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As of May 7, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has extended the Section 504 digital accessibility compliance deadline. This is critical information for any organization that receives HHS funding, as well as any third-party vendors selling software into this market.

However, while the news may seem straightforward, the implications are anything but. In this post, I’ll clarify what did and didn’t change, and what your organization needs to do. The most important thing to know is this: you can still be held accountable for inaccessible digital experiences today.

What changed

The compliance timeline for meeting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 A/AA has been moved out by one year.

Originally, organizations with 15 or more employees were required to comply by May 11, 2026, with smaller organizations following on May 10, 2027.

Under the revised timeline:

Recipients with 15 or more employees will now have until May 11, 2027, to comply.
Recipients with fewer than 15 employees will now have until May 10, 2028, to comply.

That’s the full extent of the change.

What didn’t change

There is no rollback in requirements, no narrowing of scope, no modification to what must be made accessible.

Digital accessibility is still required today. Section 504 has always prohibited discrimination based on disability for organizations receiving federal funding. That obligation did not start with the 2024 rule, and it does not pause because of this deadline extension.

In short, while you now have more time to achieve compliance with the new HHS 504 rule, you still need to make sure all of your (public, patient, and/or student) digital information and communication technology (ITC) is accessible today.

The legal reality (right now)

Your organization can still face complaints, investigations, and lawsuits today if your digital experiences are not accessible. And while the deadline may have shifted, you still need to be able to demonstrate forward motion, with a clear, documented path to WCAG 2.1 A/AA by the newly extended deadline.

In practice, enforcement has already moved beyond WCAG 2.0 A/AA. The U.S. Department of Justice has consistently pointed to WCAG 2.1 A/AA in consent decrees and settlements. This is the critical distinction. The updated rule does not create new liability. Organizations are already accountable for inaccessible experiences today. What it does is remove ambiguity by defining how that accountability is measured.

How to make the most of this extension

A deadline extension creates a real opportunity. By moving now, your organization can reduce risk, control costs, and build capability in a steady, sustainable way. You can focus on the digital experiences that matter most, fix real barriers your users are facing today, and put the right systems in place to prevent issues from recurring.

The alternative—deferring work, letting issues pile up, and underestimating the time you’ll need—will result in higher costs, greater complexity, and more risk. Now is the ideal time to ensure your organization is making the right decisions for the long term.

Where to focus first

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Start where access matters most. User portals. Scheduling. Billing. Enrollments. Forms and documents.

If someone needs it to receive support, care, or services, it needs to work.

Use this extension to build capability, not delay action. Define ownership. Build accessibility into procurement, design, and development. Monitor continuously. Hold vendors accountable. And measure progress over time.

Section 504 protects more than digital access

It’s important to remember that, in addition to its other applications, HHS Section 504 specifically ensures equal access to healthcare, including medical equipment and treatment decisions. For people with disabilities, this can be life-altering. In some cases, individuals have been denied appropriate care based on assumptions about quality of life. That is the kind of discrimination these protections are meant to address. A deadline extension does not change the urgency of that responsibility.

The bottom line

This is a shift in the timeline for explicit expectations for meeting WCAG 2.1 A/AA. But it’s also an opportunity. Organizations that act now can replace uncertainty with a clear, defensible plan.

This process starts with a gap analysis—a clear view of what’s working and where your digital experiences fall short. What you’re doing is developing a prioritized roadmap for remediation and a practical path to align with WCAG 2.1 AA over time.

If you’re ready to move forward, Deque can help you establish that baseline. With the right visibility and a focused plan, progress becomes manageable and measurable. And the progress you make can literally change lives for the better.

Glenda Sims

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As an engineering leader, there are many reasons why digital accessibility may suddenly get handed to you as a priority. Your organization might be facing a legal threat. A regulation may have changed. Accessibility issues may have emerged as a sales blocker. Whatever the reason, you’re going to have to figure it out. And you’re likely asking yourself, Where do I start with accessibility when I’ve never owned it before?

You’re going to need a plan, and a lot of information.

In this post, we’ll give you a three-stage, 90-day plan. As a bonus, we’ll also explain why developer upskilling can be your biggest long-term asset.

The first 90 days

Stage one: Scoping the problem
Stage two: Tooling and testing
Stage three: Audits and remediation

*Bonus: The importance of training

The first 90 days

Plan on breaking your first 90 days into three stages. The number of days you spend on each will vary depending on many factors, but the sequence remains the same.

Stage one: Scoping the problem

To successfully scope the challenge ahead, you need context. If you’re at a larger organization, the chances are particularly good that somebody somewhere has accessibility expertise, and some understanding of the company’s current accessibility state. The more information you can gather about what has and hasn’t been done before, the better positioned you’ll be to move your effort forward.

For example, what factors are driving accessibility requirements? Is your company in control of the timeline, or are external legal pressures demanding a specific delivery time? Does your company have any digital accessibility testing tools, and if so, which ones? Has your company conducted accessibility tests before, and if so, what was tested and what were the results? Has your company ever had a digital accessibility audit? When, and what were the results? Have determinations been made about which standards your company currently needs to conform to?

That last question is particularly important, because conformance to an applicable accessibility standard is a key factor in the vast majority of digital accessibility lawsuits—it’s why accessibility testing is so critical. Which brings us to the second stage: tooling and testing.

Stage two: Tooling and testing

Put simply, the work of meeting your company’s digital accessibility requirements involves making inaccessible digital products, services, and experiences accessible. To know whether they’re accessible, you have to test them.

Testing within your browser, with free tools like Deque’s browser extension in Chrome or WebAIM’s WAVE, is a great place to start.

As you advance your approach to testing, you’ll want to consider automated accessibility testing within your broader end-to-end testing strategy. You can look at tools that integrate with your existing test frameworks (such as Playwright, Selenium, or Cypress), AI-powered guided testing, or even MCP connections that enable you to fix issues directly in your IDE.

(Note: If you have native mobile applications, a unique toolset is required, because testing guidelines and strategies for native mobile differ from web, and require special expertise and rule mapping.)

Mainly, the sooner you get started with testing, the sooner you’ll have results to react to. And once you have test results, you can begin to fix your issues. With the right automated tools, your team should be able to solve over 50% of the problems right away.

Make sure to take a systemic approach, avoid accessibility overlay solutions that cause more issues than they solve, and beware of any tools that return high rates of false positives—you’ll burn your team out before you’ve barely gotten started. Some approaches to consider:

If you use a design system, or pattern or component libraries, you can significantly increase your accessibility score by fixing the following types of issues:
1. Color contrast
2. Focus, hover, and error state indications
3. Visible labels
4. Keyboard access
From there, you can move on to page-level issues for web applications, such as:
1. Page structure
2. Keyboard-only navigation
3. Identify decorative vs. informative images
4. Alternative text for images

Stage three: Audits and remediation

Using the right automated tools, you can make an early impact with some comparatively quick fixes. From there, you need to understand how to approach everything else. This is where an expert accessibility audit is vitally important.

Hiring an expert company that specializes in digital accessibility testing and remediation is a smart step at this stage, because modern digital accessibility can be complex. You’ll need to balance both manual and automated testing, and regulatory requirements can differ widely depending on where and how your organization operates—this can impact everything from which standard you need to test to, to which version of a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) and ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report) you need to use to report your status and show your initial efforts are making a difference.

The right digital accessibility partner will deliver fast results, trusted findings, and actionable guidance. At Deque, we cover everything from assessment to prioritization to remediation:

Assessment. Deque experts assess your digital accessibility, combining automated and manual testing to identify issues.
Prioritization. Organizations receive a tailored results dashboard to help prioritize the most critical issues.
Remediation. Developers are empowered with clear guidance, and can also work directly with Deque experts.

The importance of training

Even as you’re moving through your first 90 days, there is a parallel effort you can be mounting: upskilling your teams. This is important, because you’re probably wondering at this point, “Should I hire a dedicated accessibility engineer or distribute ownership across the team?”

The answer depends on many factors, but you should be able to proceed on the assumption that you have what you need with your current teams—provided you give them the right training opportunities.

Training should be an important part of your long-term strategy, because digital accessibility is not a one-and-done project. To ensure your products remain accessible, your development process will need to change, and your team will need to learn new skills.

Development teams that are efficient at shipping accessible products have learned how to code for accessibility by default. If that is not where your team is, you should decide how to get your team there. Some options to consider include:

Pick one front-end developer and have them work on fixing the accessibility issues, learning the automated test patterns, and the tools you select, and then have them share their learnings with the rest of your team.
Have a hackathon with an entire product team focused on accessibility, where they fix most of the accessibility issues. It is helpful to hire an expert for this hackathon. This is a big commitment, but it is often the fastest way to upskill a team.
Help technical and non-technical roles grow their accessibility expertise with self-paced or instructor-led training. From IAAP certification courses to advanced learning paths and guided training, your team can continue to develop as your accessibility initiatives evolve.

Next steps

Digital accessibility is all about progress over perfection. You won’t emerge from your first 90 days with every single issue fixed, and it will take time for you to successfully lead your organization along those additional paths.

The good news is that each bit of progress you achieve makes the next achievement that much easier to reach. And the more progress you make, the more evidence there will be that your team is succeeding.

Here are just some of the changes you can expect to see as teams incorporate accessibility into their development process:

Designs are explicit about the roles and expected behaviors of components and pages.
Front-end developers learn accessible code patterns (e.g., proper use of ARIA markup for web applications) and not only ensure that their work passes automated accessibility checks, but they also use techniques that will pass manual audits.
Any new feature work includes automated tests for accessibility.
Pull requests include accessibility checks.
More comprehensive (including interactive) testing is performed before a release is pushed to production.
Accessibility issues reported in production are tracked as specially tagged tickets and prioritized.
Each product has a current VPAT or equivalent and an accessibility statement.

After your first 90 days, you won’t have everything solved, and you don’t need to. What you will have is a working understanding of your accessibility landscape, a set of tools and processes your team can build on, and real evidence of progress.

Best of all, the path gets easier as you go, because each issue your team fixes becomes an issue they know how to prevent going forward. Every quality tool you integrate and every efficient process you implement are investments that compound.

Deque can help at all points along the way. From tools and audits to training and strategy, we work with organizations at every stage of the accessibility journey. Reach out today, and let’s get you on the path to long-term digital accessibility success.

Dylan Barrell

Dylan is Deque's CTO and leads product development initiatives. He works to help to build a barrier-free web by making it really easy for developers, quality assurance engineers and content writers to create accessible applications and content. Dylan has an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BS from the University of the Witwatersrand.

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Tags: accessibility compliance , accessibility tools , axe DevTools , axe-core

There is an important update regarding Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). An interim final rule has been published in the Federal Register on Monday, April 20, 2026, with the following language:

“The compliance date for State and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more is extended from April 24, 2026, to April 26, 2027. The compliance date for public entities with a total population of less than 50,000, or any special district government, is extended from April 26, 2027, to April 26, 2028.”

It is vitally important to understand the implications of this deadline extension. To do so, we can look directly at language from the Department of Justice (DOJ):

“By extending the 2024 final rule’s compliance dates, covered entities can avoid spending time and resources assessing the application of these defenses and developing written analysis, and they can instead specifically focus on compliance efforts. This will ultimately lead to greater accessibility for individuals with disabilities because more time and resources will be devoted directly to compliance with the substantive requirements of the 2024 final rule.”

The key takeaway here is that this change is about prioritizing compliance. The goal, as stated in the DOJ language, is to “ensure that covered entities better understand the rule’s substance to achieve compliance to the benefit of persons with disabilities.”

In other words, this is not an invitation to pause. It is an opportunity to get this right.

As I wrote about in my recent article (when these updates were still being considered), “the Title II rule does not introduce a new expectation. It clearly defines one. This means digital accessibility is not optional or something to work on later. It is a current responsibility, and progress must continue.”

In that article, I provided four recommendations:

Recognize accessibility as a continuous legal requirement.
Stay aligned to WCAG 2.1 AA (or higher).
Don’t pause accessibility efforts.
Focus on sustainable accessibility practices.

This is still the recommended course of action. As the DOJ itself says, this update to compliance dates is about “efficient preparation for full compliance.”

And that preparation needs to be happening now.

Glenda Sims

All Posts by Glenda Sims Website

Tags: ADA Compliance , ADA Title II

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The Axe Platform now supports testing, remediation, and monitoring aligned to the Référentiel Général d’Amélioration de l’Accessibilité (RGAA), France’s official accessibility framework.

With the European Accessibility Act (EAA) now in effect, digital accessibility requirements across the EU have matured, bringing new urgency and complexity. RGAA predates the EAA, and is now being used to measure and demonstrate EAA conformance. Under the EAA, private-sector industries such as banking, e-commerce, and transportation are expected to meet accessibility requirements alongside the public sector.

The RGAA is a highly detailed standard with many requirements and some criteria that go beyond EAA and WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Fortunately, organizations can navigate RGAA effectively with Deque tools and services, as well as our local accessibility partner in France, Ipedis.

Want to learn more? Contact the Deque team.

First steps

If you believe your organization may be subject to the RGAA, Deque can help. To begin, we’ll assess your current accessibility status and help you understand how the RGAA standard applies in practice to your products, services, and experiences.

From there, we can recommend the best path forward. Deque tools now offer 100% coverage of all RGAA criteria, and Ipedis, our accessibility partner in France, can offer local support and guidance.

Your path to conformance may include:

Conducting structured accessibility audits against RGAA criteria.
Testing against RGAA criteria and implementing remediation plans.
Documenting accessibility efforts and demonstrating progress, including accessibility statements, multi-year plans, and defensible evidence for external validation.

A comprehensive solution for RGAA conformance

Based on your team’s needs, we’ll work with you to develop strategies and processes and determine the right combination of tools and audits to meet your accessibility goals.

Tools

The following Deque products all support RGAA conformance:

Axe DevTools for Web: Efficiently test against RGAA criteria via APIs and CLI, get RGAA remediation guidance using your preferred AI coding agent via Axe MCP Server, and use the browser extension to automate testing and get actionable issue details.
Axe Auditor: Conduct guided manual testing aligned with 100% of RGAA criteria to accurately fix and validate complex accessibility issues and produce audit-ready results.
Axe Monitor: Scan for RGAA accessibility issues in production across your entire digital portfolio. Get actionable reports to help your teams improve accessibility across websites and digital content.

Audits

For organizations based in France or those that need French-language support, our partner Ipedis can provide RGAA-aligned audits. Ipedis can also augment your team with on-site accessibility consultants and support the development of multi-year accessibility strategies and action plans.

For organizations outside of France that don’t need local support, Deque’s services team can provide RGAA-aligned audits and guidance.

Next steps

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to scale an existing program, Deque meets you where you are with the tools, services, and expertise needed to navigate RGAA and beyond.

Accessibility requirements are complex, but with Deque, you can turn complexity into a clear, actionable path to achieving conformance and building a scalable program.

Contact Deque today.

Deque Systems

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Tags: accessibility audits , accessibility testing tools , EAA , RGAA

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There’s been a noticeable increase in conversation across the accessibility community and among organizations impacted by ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Title II about potential changes to the web accessibility rule. Ongoing federal review activity has prompted questions about timing and implementation, and in some cases, speculation about what may change. Many organizations are now seeking practical guidance on how to move forward.

Let’s start with what matters most.

The rule is still the rule

Today, the ADA Title II regulation remains in effect as published. There has been no official announcement changing the compliance requirements or deadlines.

That means state and local governments, and the organizations that support them, should continue preparing for compliance.

Or, as Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer focused on digital accessibility, wrote in a recent post, “The rule is the rule until it isn’t.”

At this point, it’s reasonable to say:

There is no confirmed outcome.
There are indicators of potential movement.
The range of possibilities includes delay or modification.
A full rollback appears unlikely based on current signals.

Separating signal from speculation

There is real activity happening. Ongoing federal review, including reports of an interim final rule under consideration, has raised questions about what may change and when.

At the same time, uncertainty has created space for rumors, particularly on social platforms. You may have seen speculation that:

The rule will be canceled.
Deadlines are no longer relevant.
Compliance efforts should pause.

None of these statements are grounded in official regulatory action.

This is an important moment to stay focused on verified information rather than reacting to speculation.

Accessibility was already required under the ADA

It is also important to understand that the accessibility requirement is not new.

Long before the recent ADA Title II rule, the ADA already required state and local governments to provide equal access to their programs, services, and activities. That obligation applies regardless of whether those services are delivered in person, on the web, or through mobile applications.

For years, digital accessibility has been enforced through:

Complaints and investigations by the Department of Justice.
Complaints and litigation by end-users.
Settlement agreements.
Case law interpreting equal access in a digital context.

The ADA has always required accessibility. What had been missing is consistency in how to measure it. The Title II rule does not introduce a new expectation. It clearly defines one. This means digital accessibility is not optional or something to work on later. It is a current responsibility, and progress must continue.

What organizations need to do right now

The most effective course of action is straightforward. We recommend that you:

Recognize accessibility as a continuous legal requirement
- Accessibility is not a one-time compliance event. It is an ongoing capability.
- Even if the ADA Title II deadlines shift, the underlying expectations and user needs do not.
Stay aligned to WCAG 2.1 AA (or higher)
- The technical foundation of the rule is well established and widely adopted across industries, and is regularly used by the U.S. Department of Justice in enforcement and settlement agreements. Continuing to align with it reflects how accessibility is already being measured and enforced today.
- Progress made today moves you toward meeting current compliance expectations and closer to sustainable, scalable accessibility.
Don’t pause accessibility efforts
- Accessibility is an ongoing process, and you always need to prioritize it to ensure equal access for everyone who engages with your organization.
- Pausing accessibility work does not reduce legal risk. It increases existing risk and can introduce new risk.
- ADA legal obligations remain in effect.
- When accessibility work pauses, people with disabilities continue to encounter barriers accessing websites, forms, and services, regardless of compliance deadlines. These barriers violate the ADA’s requirements today.
- Delaying accessibility work increases the cost and complexity of remediation later, as issues accumulate and must be fixed further downstream in the development process, where changes are more expensive and harder to implement at scale.
Focus on sustainable accessibility practices
- Success means not chasing deadlines, but rather, continuing to build systems, processes, and programs that consistently produce accessible outcomes, such as:
  - Automated testing within the CI/CD pipeline
  - Clear governance and accountability
  - Design systems with accessibility built in
  - Ongoing conformance monitoring and remediation

What happens if the deadlines shift? What may change, and what does not change.

If the ADA Title II compliance deadlines are adjusted, it may feel like a reprieve. In reality, very little changes where it matters most.

What may change:

Compliance dates and enforcement timelines.
Short-term prioritization decisions within organizations.

These changes may affect your near-term planning decisions, but they do not change the requirement to make digital services accessible, which is already being measured against WCAG 2.1 in practice.

What does not change:

The requirement that digital services be accessible.
The reliance on WCAG as the technical standard.
The need for sustainable, scalable accessibility practices.
The legal and reputational risk of inaccessible experiences.
The marketplace demand in the procurement space.

These are the factors that drive enforcement and business decisions. They shape how organizations are evaluated today, regardless of shifting timelines.

A delay changes the due date for compliance with WCAG 2.1 A/AA. It does not change the underlying requirement to ensure digital services are accessible.

Why accessibility readiness still matters

Accessibility readiness is not about hitting a single deadline. It is about building the capability to consistently deliver inclusive experiences.

When your organization invests in readiness, you:

Reduce legal, financial, and reputational risk.
Reduce long-term remediation costs.
Avoid last-minute scrambles and fire drills.
Improve usability for all users, not just those with disabilities.
Strengthen trust with your communities.
Remain competitive in the marketplace.

Just as important, accessibility does not exist in a vacuum. It intersects with broader trends in digital quality, automation, and AI-driven development. Organizations that are not ready will fall behind peers who are already building accessibility into how they design, develop, and deliver digital experiences, regardless of regulatory timing. Organizations that are prepared will continue to lead the way forward in providing products, services, and experiences that work for everyone.

Deque’s perspective

At Deque, we are closely monitoring developments and staying engaged with trusted sources across government, legal, industry, and accessibility communities.

Our commitment is simple:

Provide clear, fact-based guidance.
Avoid unnecessary alarm or speculation.
Help organizations make confident, informed decisions.

If anything changes, we will explain:

What changed.
What it means.
What you should do next.

The bottom line

There may be movement.
There may be updates.

But today:

The rule is still the rule.

And the best thing organizations can do right now is keep moving forward, meeting compliance expectations, and creating long-term, scalable accessibility.

If you have questions about how this may impact your accessibility strategy, Deque’s team is here to help you navigate it with clarity and confidence. Reach out to Deque today.

Glenda Sims

All Posts by Glenda Sims Website

Tags: ADA Compliance , ADA Title II , Americans with Disabilities Act

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When your team is under pressure to move quickly, and you know you need to test for accessibility, automated testing can feel like the most efficient approach. In practice, however, accessibility testing requires both automated and manual testing. They serve different purposes, and both are necessary to determine whether an experience is truly accessible, usable, and conformant. The good news is, you can include manual testing and still maintain your velocity.

In this post, we’ll examine the complementary benefits of automated and manual testing and outline a testing approach that supports development speed while continuing to deliver more accessible user experiences.

Many teams begin improving their accessibility workflows by incorporating automated checks throughout their development lifecycle, using tools like Axe DevTools for Web to help identify common issues earlier in the process and reduce later rework.

Automated accessibility testing in modern development

By running accessibility checks locally, in pull requests and continuous integration pipelines, you can catch common issues early, when changes are easiest to fix. Over time, you’ll reduce the number of accessibility violations that can reach production or appear during audits. Using automation throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) shifts accessibility from a last-minute concern to a proactive and preventative practice that supports continuous development.

Different tools for different contexts

There is a wide range of automated accessibility tools on the market. Some are intentionally simple, designed to test a single page against a fixed set of rules. They’re often quicker to adopt and can be useful for initial feedback during the development phase.

Other tools are built for larger environments and can crawl multiple pages, follow user flows, apply custom rule sets, and generate comprehensive reports. Platforms such as Axe Monitor, for example, are designed to continuously scan sites or applications at scale, helping teams track accessibility issues across releases and monitor trends over time. In many organizations, different tools are used at different stages. Developers might use simpler tools during daily development, while relying on broader scanning and monitoring tools for organization-wide visibility.

Browser-based tools

Browser-based tools play an important role in this conversation. With browser-based extensions such as the Axe DevTools Extension, developers and QA testers can analyze pages directly in the browser during development and testing. The Axe DevTools Extension surfaces accessibility issues with clear guidance and references to relevant standards, making it easier to understand what needs fixing and how to fix it. This helps teams move quickly from detection to remediation without requiring deep accessibility expertise.

The platform option

If automated testing is already part of your workflow, the Axe Platform is a natural way to mature that process. Rather than a single tool, the platform brings together accessibility solutions across design, development, testing, and production, so accessibility checks can happen wherever work occurs. This approach surfaces issues with consistent results and clear guidance, helping teams address problems earlier in the SDLC.

Relying solely on automation risks overlooking critical barriers

Despite its strengths, automated testing can only detect what can be reliably measured by the tool’s ruleset. Many accessibility requirements depend on context, meaning, and interaction.

For example, automated tools can identify whether interactive elements are properly labeled and whether components are technically focusable. However, they cannot determine whether instructions are clear to users, whether the order of interactions supports completing a task without confusion, or whether the overall flow of a page makes sense when navigating with assistive technologies.

These limitations are not failures of automation. They reflect the distinction between what can be programmatically determined and what requires human judgment. Automated testing excels at consistently detecting many technical accessibility violations, but evaluating how understandable and usable an experience is for real people still requires manual review.

Automation can and will uncover a meaningful portion of issues, but it cannot yet evaluate the overall experience of navigating, understanding, and using an interface. Relying solely on automated results risks overlooking real barriers that only appear when real interactions occur.

This is why manual testing is essential.

The benefits of manual accessibility testing

During manual testing, trained accessibility professionals evaluate aspects of accessibility that require human interpretation and real interaction with the interface. These checks often focus on how users experience a page or application as they move through tasks. This process can include evaluating page structure, interaction patterns, visual presentation, and whether instructions and feedback are understandable within a complete user flow.

Manual testing is most effective when it follows a methodology that is consistent rather than reactive or random. A structured approach helps ensure consistency across different projects and teams.

Accessibility testing typically involves defining the scope of testing, choosing a technical standard (for example, WCAG 2.2 AA or EN 301 549), selecting representative pages or user flows, applying repeatable evaluation techniques, and documenting findings that support efficient remediation. Many teams use automated and guided testing first, then complete a set of remaining manual checks to validate aspects of accessibility that still require human judgment.

When manual testing is applied intentionally, it complements automated testing by expanding coverage and validating real-world usability, leading to greater accuracy and efficiency.

Audits, VPATs, and program maturity

Accessibility audits and VPATs play distinct roles in accessibility programs. Understanding how audits, automation, and manual evaluation work together is essential for sustaining accessibility over time.

Audits and VPATs serve a different purpose than development testing

Accessibility audits and Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) serve distinct yet related roles within accessibility programs. An accessibility audit evaluates a product against accessibility standards and produces detailed findings that identify barriers and remediation priorities. Many organizations conduct audits simply to understand their current accessibility posture and determine the scope of work required to improve.

A VPAT, by contrast, is a formal document that communicates how a product conforms to accessibility standards. It is often used during procurement or vendor evaluation processes. Because VPATs make public or contractual claims about accessibility, they typically rely on the evidence produced through an accessibility audit.

Whether used for internal planning, procurement, or risk management, both audits and VPATs require a level of accuracy, traceability, and contextual evaluation that automated testing alone cannot provide.

How automated testing supports audit readiness

Automated testing plays a critical supporting role by continuously reducing the volume of known, programmatically detectable issues throughout the SDLC. When teams integrate automated checks into local development, pull requests, and CI/CD pipelines, they prevent many common failures from ever reaching the audit. This lowers remediation effort, shortens audit cycles, and reduces the likelihood of surprises later in the process.

Why manual evaluation is still required

Accessibility audits evaluate products against defined technical standards such as WCAG 2.2 AA. While many success criteria can be evaluated programmatically, others require human interpretation to determine whether the requirement is truly satisfied.

For example, evaluators may need to assess whether instructions are clear enough for users to complete a task, whether content structure communicates meaning effectively, or whether dynamic updates are announced in a way that assistive technologies can interpret correctly. These kinds of determinations depend on context and human review rather than purely automated checks.

Because of this, manual evaluation remains a necessary part of accessibility audits. Automated testing can surface many technical violations, but manual assessment ensures that the product actually conforms to the full set of accessibility requirements defined by the applicable standard.

How mature programs bring these approaches together

Mature accessibility programs use automation and manual testing together to ensure comprehensive coverage of accessibility requirements. Automation establishes a consistent baseline of technical compliance and signals ongoing due diligence, while structured manual testing evaluates requirements that cannot be fully verified programmatically.

Accessibility audits then build on both efforts, providing a detailed assessment of conformance against established accessibility standards at a specific point in time. The audit findings are supported by documented evidence and testing results that demonstrate how the product aligns with the applicable technical requirements.

From one-time audits to ongoing maturity

As programs evolve, audits and VPATs often become recurring checkpoints rather than one-time events. In this model, teams continue to perform both automated and manual accessibility testing throughout the product lifecycle, using automation to continuously identify programmatically detectable issues, while manual evaluation verifies requirements that require human judgment.

Periodic accessibility audits then provide an independent snapshot of conformance at a specific point in time. Together, ongoing testing and recurring audits help organizations move beyond reactive compliance and toward measurable, defensible accessibility maturity.

A practical way forward

Accessibility testing does not require choosing between speed and thoroughness. By integrating automated and manual testing, you can have the best of both worlds, scaling your efforts while expanding coverage, increasing accuracy, and maintaining velocity.

Ready to elevate your accessibility testing program? Reach out to Deque today to see how automated testing, audits, and expert guidance can work together to help your organization achieve its accessibility goals.

Jeremy Rivera

Jeremy Rivera is a Developer Advocate for Deque Systems Inc. He is a full-stack MERN Developer and a University of South Florida alum. Jeremy transitioned to developer relations to bridge the gap between software and developers needing a diverse array of tools. He is a general technologist and evangelist of open-source and cloud-based tools, passionate about helping developers make the web a more inclusive environment.

All Posts by Jeremy Rivera Website

Tags: accessibility audits , automated accessibility testing , manual accessibility testing , VPAT