On the third Thursday in May each year, this year being Thursday, May 15, digital accessibility advocates around the world come together to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). The purpose of GAAD is to raise awareness and spark conversations about digital accessibility and inclusion for the over one billion people worldwide with disabilities or impairments.

Many people/organizations are at a loss for how they could celebrate and spread the accessibility love around. In this post, I’ll share just a few ideas for those that might be at a loss for what to do. While not an exhaustive list of ideas, it may spark creativity and new, more innovative ideas.

Disabilities Showcase

The first year that I was involved in digital accessibility at United Airlines, we held a disabilities showcase. Picture a room with six stations, each presenting a particular disability and how it is impacted by the lack of digital accessibility. One station showed the impacts of various vision disorders on a web page. Another showcased how a screen reader announces a page. Yet another presented a video by Christopher Hills, a young man with Cerebral Palsy, who uses assistive technology, a switch control, to edit video.

Panel Discussion

During my time organizing the Chicago Digital Accessibility & Inclusive Design Meetup, we would host a panel discussion on GAAD. Made up of participants representing various disabilities, the discussion centered around the impact that inaccessibility had on their lives. The events were well attended and received.

Assistive Technology Showcase

Schedule a session that demonstrates various assistive technology such as screen readers, screen magnification, switch controls, refreshable braille display, etc. Think beyond the desktop computer, as mobile phones are great assistive technology devices. More importantly, share the impact that assistive technology has on individuals.

Hack-a-thon

Take the day to identify a section of your site or application to test and remediate. Get everyone involved; Developers, Designers, Quality Assurance Analysis, Product Owners, Project Managers … everyone. And don’t forget the pizza.

Webinar

Hold an internal webinar that creates awareness of digital accessibility in your organization. Make it a lunch & learn event to create excitement.

Can’t pull together a presentation within the timeframe? Others have scheduled free webinars celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), including:

More GAAD events…

Organizational Challenge

Make it fun. Challenge your employees to go mouseless for a day … or morning (don’t want to kill productivity). Have an accessibility team in your organization? Give employees a scavenger hunt to find accessibility bugs using layman’s methods. Example: can you use your keyboard to access and operate all controls in a company’s app? Those that submit valid accessibility bugs get a gift card, company brand bling, etc.

Share out Social Media Tips

Create awareness around how to add text alternatives to images on social media. Provide guidance on how to create effective and accessible #HashTags. And don’t forget those #GAAD hashtags.

Caption some videos

We all know (or should know) that we cannot rely on auto captions for videos. Depending on your scenario, consider having folks captions some videos. Or, if automated captions exist, have them edit them to ensure they are accessible. Make sure any contributors have guidance in advance on creating effective and accessible captions. The sharing of that guidance alone supports the goal of GAAD.

… and Don’t Forget Transcripts

If captioning videos is not needed (great!) or the logistics are too difficult to pull off for GAAD, consider creating transcripts. These can be created from the captions (once made accessible).

Wrapping it Up

The official Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) website also provides some suggestions. Whatever you end up doing, do not fret. It doesn’t have to be the Academy Awards or the Olympics. It just has to create awareness to a few more people. That in itself will make a great impact on digital accessibility. Don’t fret that it is not big enough, impactful enough. Just do something.