Free licenses for the JAWS screen reader and ZoomText magnifier and reader are available to everyone in the US and Canada until June 30, 2020. Freedom Scientific is offering this to help students and workers who are suddenly home due to COVID-19.

Automated accessibility testing performed by the Bureau of Internet Accessibility's a11y® analysis platform revealed significant accessibility barriers on the websites of several of the nation's most highly-rated elementary schools. Collectively, almost half (49.71%) of the checkpoints tested failed, suggesting that many people with disabilities likely would be prevented from full and independent access to the websites' resources.

Microsoft announced Xbox One and Windows 10 now provide transcription that converts in-game player speech and chat text to text that users can read on the screen. The feature is currently available to games that support it, Halo Wars 2 and Forza Motorsport 7, the company said.

For those in the web and digital accessibility space, and especially for those with disabilities or impairments that impact their use of websites and digital platforms, accessibility is always on their radar. Sometimes for others, it takes a big event or an Aha! moment for the importance of accessibility to be recognized. For many individuals and organizations, the Coronavirus health concern is quickly becoming one of those events.

The Bureau of Internet Accessibility team will be at the 35th CSUN Assistive Technology Conference on March 11 – 13, 2020. We'll be at Booth 1314 in the Grand Ballroom. We look forward to meeting you there!

Business owners and website managers have to weigh the time and cost against the benefit of changes and upkeep to their website. For many, this leads to a simple question: Is website accessibility worth it? In part one, brand and company culture, lawsuit protection, audience reach and SEO, and the bottom line were highlighted.

Here in part two, let's look a little deeper, from privacy and security to accessibility feeling good.

Web accessibility is a civil right and it helps create an enjoyable digital customer experience — but is it worth it? You may have heard the benefits extend beyond customers service, causing many companies to prioritize accessibility. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, and Twitter all share a commitment to website accessibility. They’ve joined the growing number of companies reaping the benefits of the expanded audience reach, improved SEO, increased legal protections, and more that accessibility provides. But, still, is website accessibility actually worth all the time and effort?

Google Maps celebrated its 15th birthday with the rollout of a redesigned map and new "transit attributes" that include accessibility features. User can now find out if public transit lines include accessible entrances, seating, staffed assistance, stop-button, or hi-visible LED.

On February 6, Netflix announced with a tweet that it is now giving users the option as to whether they want trailers and next episodes to play automatically.

Autoplay could not be turned off before the update, a feature that some people enjoy, some find annoying, and some find distracting or dangerous.

You’ve tested your website, read up on accessibility trends, and even trained your staff on digital accessibility best practices. You should be set…right?

Despite the best intentions, if any of the six mistakes below look familiar, you could actually be sabotaging your digital accessibility efforts.

As more and more people and organizations work hard to learn how and why to comply with digital accessibility best practices and guidelines, they might also be looking for quick and easy ways to check the accessibility box. Checklists, primers, and clean lists of dos and don'ts can be great resources and can help content creators and their partners keep accessibility top of mind and get things right the first time.

But just as a sport is much more than a list of rules and penalties, the accessibility whole is greater than the sum of its accessibility parts.

Chase has opened a new banking location on H Street in Washington, D.C., equipped with the right technology and staff to serve customers who are deaf and hard of hearing.

There's a mobile app, released by Google in February 2019, called Live Transcribe that is aimed to help people who are deaf and hard of hearing more-easily have conversations with people who are hearing. The app uses speech recognition technology to transcribe speech into text directly on the phone screen, nearly in real-time.

A New York man is suing Pornhub over the lack of closed captioning on videos.

Yaroslav Suris, who is deaf according to the court document, has filed a class action suit against the adult website operators on behalf of himself and others who are deaf or hard of hearing. The complaint states that the website has videos without closed captions, or with limited closed captions, and thus violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Retailers and restaurants nationwide are taking notice of the new attention — and lawsuits — surrounding gift cards, and specifically whether they violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when they don't include Braille. As businesses prepare strategies for how to make those public accommodations accessible, they should stay mindful that gift cards that are bought and used electronically (eGift cards) have to be accessible to people with disabilities, too.

One of the most fascinating things about statistics and facts in general is that people can use the exact same information to tell very different stories. When it comes to opportunity and requirements surrounding digital accessibility, this is no different.

When the number of people with disabilities is used to show opportunity, when customer feedback is used to make improvements, and when accessibility metrics are used to show ongoing commitment, it matters.

Here are four easy resolutions anyone can make this new year to help broaden their knowledge and bridge the digital divide.

1. Brush up on your accessibility knowledge
2. Introduce ten people to digital accessibility
3. Improve social media accessibility
4. Ask for accessibility

As digital technologies become an ever-greater part of our lives, it’s more important than ever to understand how they intersect with accessibility. Here are four of the hottest tech trends for 2020, and how accessibility can play a crucial role for each one.

The data shows that customers may not consider physical and digital spaces to have much of a barrier between one another, but rather as extensions of the other.

To the customer, the brand is the brand, so they often expect seamless transitions between the physical and the digital and the same level of service across all channels — and this includes accessibility.

Should people be surprised when inaccessibility leads to bad experiences, complaints, or even lawsuits? Sometimes when the dots aren't connected in practical ways, some of the rules of accessibility might seem arbitrary. However, they are anything but, and asking the questions in a different way can help people further their understanding of how they impact real people.

Digital accessibility continues to pick up steam with more organizations realizing its value and more individuals developing awareness and expertise every day. Reflecting on all that has transpired in 2019 makes it clear that accessibility will keep trending up, perhaps leading to an even more eventful 2020, which is almost hard to imagine.

Here's a snapshot of this past year in digital accessibility.

Website accessibility features are the elements of a site designed to improve the ability of people with disabilities to independently use it. Sometimes websites include extra options specifically to enhance some people's use, but usually accessibility features are integrated into a well-coded website that is accessible by default.

While more and more companies are realizing the benefits of improving web accessibility, many more are losing billions by not making their platforms usable for people with disabilities. Americans with disabilities have $490 billion in disposable income, yet too many websites are failing to meet their needs — or capture their business.

Thinking of mobile accessibility as secondary, or skipping it altogether, puts organizations at legal risk and makes it likely that a large percentage of users will have negative or even unusable experiences. Here are five stats to show why.

Organizations from around the world have teamed up again this year with Santa’s elves in sending out Braille letters from Santa. You can request one using this list of organizations. They’ve got a direct line to Santa and the North Pole — but act fast!