axe-con 2025: day three

Last day of the conference! Feel free to read our thoughts on the talks attended on day one and day two of axe-con as well. Without further ado, here's our reactions to today's talks.

The Digital Accessibility Legal Landscape

Speaker: Lainey Feingold, Disability Rights Lawyer, Author, Law Office of Lainey Feingold

Summary/Insights: Ashley Helminiak

I always make sure to attend the legal landscape talk every axe-con so I can keep up with what's happening. This year, however, it definitely had a different tone. And no wonder, with today's tumultuous political climate. Without going down that rabbit hole, I will just say I appreciated Lainey checking in with people and offering some reassurances that at least some powerful checks and balances are still standing, and that there has been successful pushback in several areas with regards to accessibility.

Lainey reminded us that the ADA gained a new web + mobile rule in 2024 that covers digital accessibility for state and local governments. All state and local government programs will have to be WCAG 2.1 AA compliant, with deadlines in 2027 to remediate their sites. There is actually a case in Louisiana where they sued the state government for having a non-compliant site, and as of right now a judge ruled that even though the 2027 deadline hasn't yet passed, they still have to remediate their site in advance of that date.

She assured us that new presidential executive orders cannot change these protections and laws. While the Department of Justice (DOJ) could take action to change rulings, there is no movement on that at the moment, and those procedures are historically slow. It may be the first time I've been grateful for the snail's pace of lawmaking/changing. Other areas of risk include the fact that 17 states have private lawsuits against Section 504, and we have many more conservative judges in office than before.

Sadly, we don't have much hope for making strides on lawmaking to protect people with disabilities. Some bills at the state and federal level have failed, and others have been at a standstill and are not prioritized in conjunction with everything else that's going on. However, there are still lawsuits being filed to protect people under the ADA, corporate pushback against removal of DEI initiatives and protections, and, as Lainey so aptly put it, "not every judge is a Trump judge."

I also loved her reminder that just because some guidelines and initiatives have been removed from government and corporate websites, it doesn't mean it wasn't good. She brought up that a way to access it was the good old Wayback Machine, a service I've used many a time in my own work, and didn't consider before that we could dig out policies that were trashed in sweeping and hasty political efforts.

She also had her standard overview of cases right now. Over 4,000 cases were filed last year against websites, with around 20% on sites that have already been sued. Also, over 25% of the sites were using an overlay! Goes to show they don't fix things, they won't save you, and in most cases, they make things worse. There are even cases right now against AccessiBe and UserWay for breach of contract and breach of "good faith and fair dealing." I'm excited and hopeful for the outcome of those.

So, a belated asking forgiveness instead of permission for the political undertones of this write-up. And for the length. But there was just so much that I felt was worth sharing, so I'm not all that sorry.

Accessibility in the age of social media influence

Speakers:
Koya Tyson, Director of Inclusive and Accessible IT, Accenture
Surbhi Lohia, Accessibility SME, Accenture

Summary/Insights: Ashley Helminiak

This was a solid talk highlighting the capabilities of social media platforms and how we can create accessible content. I did think that some of their points on how it is an opportunity for inclusivity, such as giving voice to marginalized communities and diverse perspectives have an equal chance of further marginalizing people or giving voice to dangerous groups. But perhaps that's my disenchantment and skepticism talking.

They outlined some impactful hashtag social media movements, such as #CripTheVote, #IceBucketChallenge, and #CaptionThis. With people spending an average of over two hours on social media per day, there is a great opportunity to build awareness and community around accessibility even with successful hashtag movements.

Social media has come a long way in recent years, with AI auto-captioning of videos, giving users the opportunity to add alt text to their images, etc. But these advances are far from perfect, and with things like lack of review of automated captioning, or neglecting to populate alt text (or populating it with bad alt text) can actually be more detrimental. 

Luckily, Koya and Surbhi had some best practices to follow:

• Add quality alt text that describe the content of an image.
• Make sure captions or a transcript are included with a video, and evaluated for accuracy.
• Evaluate the color contrast of text over backgrounds and images.
• Consider your audience as you craft your language.
• Include an audio description where important cues are announced.
• Consider an ASL interpreter.

These best practices have been a little slow to be supported by social media platforms, and even slower to be adopted by its users. But we can keep making progress toward social platforms being an accessible space, by educating users, modeling inclusive behavior, and collaborating and advocating for change.

Influencing Without Authority: A Pep Talk for Accessibility Advocates

Speaker: Kai Wong, Principal Accessibility, Teladoc Health

Summary/Insights: Ashley Helminiak

Kai spoke of several frustrations that people with disabilities can encounter purely from ignorance of others and not paying attention to consequences of decisions. Even something as simple as choosing round doorknobs instead of levers can cause issues with access to a building. Advocating for accessibility can be tough, but it doesn't have to be loud. You don't have to have thousands of followers. Your impact can be quiet or loud. It can start small and ramp up. You can advocate in a way that works for you as an individual, too.

Here are tips on becoming (and surviving) being an accessibility advocate:

• Believe in yourself. If you remain committed and prioritize learning from trusted sources, you're already on your way. You can attend conferences, join local meetups, and use reputable online sources to build your knowledge base.
• Teach others. You can become a trusted source yourself. Teach on different topics within your workplace.
• Build relationships. Find relationships in and out of the workplace to build connection and spread influence.
• Drive change. Check your own work, don't rely solely on someone with accessibility in their job title, talk about it, and celebrate wins.

I really enjoyed Kai's energy and personality during her presentation. It was a good reminder not to get discouraged when it feels like change is happening slowly, or worse, not at all. Her pep talk lived up to her presentation's title!

TV for All: Breaking Barriers to Accessibility on Connected Devices

Speakers:
Sarah Wang, Digital Accessibility Analyst, CBC/Radio-Canada
Olivier Fortin, Senior Digital Accessibility (A11y) Engineer, Designer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Summary/Insights: Ashley Helminiak

This talk was centered around Gem, a Canadian streaming platform that has prioritized accessibility. They discussed the various aspects of accessibility with connected devices like TV, and how they incorporated accessibility into the design, development, and content creation areas of their business. It reminded me a bit of my talk from day two by the accessibility folks for Pluto TV, but I liked hearing more details about assistive tech with TVs in particular, which I haven't done much experimentation with. Partially because the main TV in my house isn't particularly new. Or smart.

I found the challenges they had to face interesting, and honestly, a little difficult. There is more variation in the UI and systems in different TV brands than browsers it seems, and more limitations on tools and testing capabilities. I don't envy them, that's for sure! Overall a great talk that got me thinking about the digital space beyond my own work, even if I wasn't quite sure how much to apply to my daily tasks.

Innovating Neuroinclusion: Building Accessible Digital Experiences for Neurodivergent Users

Speaker: Piper Hutson, Professor, Lindenwood University

Summary/Insights: Ashley Helminiak

I feel the very similarly about neurodivergence as Piper, in the fact that it is really about how people process information differently from a cultural or societal standpoint. Notice that those are external factors and perceptions. For me, neurodivergence should be treated as the norm, not the "other," since everybody is different, and far more people fail to achieve "the norm" than what we'd think.

Piper brought up issues with complex navigation systems, different typefaces, and more that all affect people with different cognition, which can cause task abandoment and failure to retain information. She also brought up that in the category of neurodivergence, it's not as black and white as a person who is blind encountering a barrier preventing them from access. I also loved that her research and findings were based off of Great Britain's initiatives, because they are much more advanced in their approach to neurodiversity than the United States is (where it's viewed as something to treat or medicate to bring people closer to "the norm.")

In the end, it boiled down to optimizing the principles of universal design for cognitive accessibility. She called out John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory:

• Itrinsic Load: complexity of the task.
• Extraneous Load: unnecessary elements that increase cognitive friction.
• Germane Load: effort required to integrate new information.

Here are some things that we can do to combat cognitive load (or overload):

• Remove unexpected behaviors, like auto playing videos.
• Provide redundant clues like dependable navigation systems, repetitive imagery, etc.
• Provide users control over motion such as reducing motion, manual play buttons, etc.
• Style in a way to allow for adaptable font sizes.
• Simply navigation and remove unnecessary steps.

Piper did end up speeding through her presentation a little more quickly, which she actually explained how that is part of her neurodivergence with her excitement for speaking and production of dopamine. She even had AI time her script! Guess it didn't take her speed properly into account.

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It is designed to break your heart: Cultivating a harm reduction mindset as an accessibility practitioner

Speaker: Eric Bailey, Senior Designer, Accessibility & Design Systems, Github

Summary/Insights: Haley Troyer

In the first design talk of the day, Eric Bailey started with a heartfelt “thank you,” to all accessibility practitioners for doing the important work that we do. With conference fatigue setting in, it was a wonderful way to start the day, and it was nice to feel appreciated!

He then told a story about his own personal mental health struggles and how they affected both his personal and professional life. His vulnerability framed his following talking points about the impacts of organizational trauma and burnout on accessibility professionals. He shared a quote from the book The Accessibility Operations Guidebook by Devon Persing: 

"…it wasn’t accessibility work that put them in burnout, it was all the work that they had to do to be allowed to do accessibility work that caused burnout."

Finally, we moved on to harm reduction, which aims to identify systems that create and inflict harm on the people that exist within them, and work to update the system to promote safety, resilience, and healing. Here are Eric’s principles of harm reduction in accessibility work, which he adapted from similar principles by the National Harm Reduction Coalition:

1. Accepting ableism and minimizing it
2. Some barriers are worse than others
3. Improvement of quality is success
4. Provisioning of resources is non-judgmental
5. Ensuring disabled people have a voice in change
6. Empowering people also helps their peers
7. Social inequalities affect vulnerability
8. Do not minimize or ignore real harm

Compare these to the original Principles of Harm Reduction for more context.

This was an incredibly insightful and captivating presentation. I’m thankful to work for a company like Rapid Development Group that fully empowers us as designers and developers to prioritize accessibility at every stage of the project lifecycle!

Considering the “Human” in Human-Centered Design

Speaker: Maya Sellon, Inclusive Design & Digital Accessibility Principal, Shell

Summary/Insights: Haley Troyer

Maya Sellon started her session with a story about her mother, an immigrant learning English. She remembers how people refused to learn how to pronounce her name, pretended they couldn’t understand her because of her accent, and how she herself had been embarrassed when her mother mispronounced words. She tells this story to remind us that sometimes we forget that others are human, and humans aren’t perfect.

“The trouble with users is they’re only human.” - Interaction Design Foundation

Different definitions of Human Centered Design from Harvard, Wikipedia, IDEO… fail to answer the question, “which humans?”

Well, we should be designing for all humans. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer, checklist, or cheat sheet on how to do this, but Maya reminds us that we can’t build tech for everyone if we don’t remember to include everyone. Sometimes, it’s more important to simply ask the questions than it is to have all the answers.

During the Q&A portion of the talk, someone asked for strategies on getting stakeholder buy in on shifting focus to human centered design. Here are Maya’s top three suggestions:

• For executives that are motivated by avoiding risks, focus on the legal ramifications of noncompliance.
• For executives who display a fear of missing out, show them the brilliant work that other companies are doing to get them excited.
• Getting stakeholders to see someone struggling to use a product can open their eyes to the real issues.

I really enjoyed the format of this presentation, and I’m walking away with a renewed inspiration for designing solutions that consider and serve real people!

Implementation of EAA in a state-owned enterprise

Speaker: Hanna Fredholm, Accessibility Manager, Swedish State Railways (SJ)

Summary/Insights: Haley Troyer

With the implementation of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) Swedish State Railways (SJ) has shifted its perspective from task-focused accessibility to experience-focused accessibility. In her talk, Hanna Fredholm shares the organizational shifts that SJ has implemented in preparation for the June 28, 2025 deadline.

Organizational strategy

• Hiring accessibility experts - no longer relying on external partnerships, but bringing that experience in house.
• Including accessibility in organizational strategies and policies
• Training all employees in accessibility core competencies as well as providing profession-specific accessibility trainings
• Requiring accessibility compliance for all external suppliers/vendors
• Involving developers in accessibility testing to catch bugs and ensure features work for everyone
• Ensuring all content, such as documents and videos, are accessible
• Empowering passionate people within the company to help drive the mission forward

After implementing these strategies at SJ, Hanna recognized three key takeaways that were critical to the organization’s success: 

• Reflect on your organization’s perspective - does it need to shift?
• Create good relationships - find passionate people to help drive the work forward.
• Remember to celebrate - transformation takes time, so remember to celebrate small wins along the way.

The talk was short and sweet, but inspiring to see how such a large company was able to transform and integrate accessibility across all facets!

Building for Everyone: The Power of HeuristIQ in Inclusive Product Design

Speakers: 
Natashia Tjandra, Director, Research - Player and Employee Experience, Electronic Arts (EA)
Faith McGee, Sr. AI/Analytics Research Manager/Inclusive Research & Design Leader, Electronic Arts (EA)

Summary/Insights: Haley Troyer

Designing for neurodiversity is really designing for everyone, because everyone experiences disability at some point in their life (stress, illness, multitasking, etc.) In their talk, Natashia Tjandra and Faith McGee walk through their process in creating an AI agent that is trained to evaluate designs for issues that may impact the experience for neurodiverse users. To support this tool, they came up with 10 heuristics for neurodiversity.

Brightly HeuristIQ 10 Neurodiverse Experience Heuristics

1. Present control over sensory inputs
2. Facilitate social interaction
3. Accommodate different learning preferences
4. Consider memory abilities
5. Provide accessibility to content
6. Use clear and consistent language
7. Give flexibility in the timing of tasks
8. Support error management
9. Offer choice in completing tasks
10. Help people personalize their experience

The talk ended with a quick demo of the AI agent, HeuristIQ GPT, which is currently in beta testing. It behaves similarly to ChatGPT. By entering a URL or uploading a screenshot, the tool will scan for possible issues that could impact neurodivergent users and then provide recommendations on how to fix them. 

As a UX designer, the tool sounds interesting, and I signed up to be a beta tester!

Holding Vendors Accountable - Designing your own accessibility vendor monitoring program

Speakers: 
Juanita George, Head of Technical Accessibility, Navy Federal Credit Union 
Jason Page, Accessibility Analyst & Vendor Program Lead, Navy Federal Credit Union

Summary/Insights: Haley Troyer

This talk by Juanita George and Jason Page was packed full of information. Since RDG is a small team, our work with vendors is primarily integrating third-party services into client websites and applications, but there was still a lot of information that I found helpful in ensuring that those third-party services that we use are accessible. Let’s jump right in!

Create a database of vendors, including…

• Type of vendor (functionality offered, where it’s used, etc.)
• Last accessibility audit date and results
• Documentation of accessibility fixes
• ACR (completed VPAT)
• Internal point of contact
• Public facing information (accessibility statement, etc.)

Review/verify vendor claims

• Check that an assessment was completed by a qualified reputable third party (more reliable than internal audit from the vendor itself)
• Check that the tester name is provided and that they have a relevant certification in the industry
• Check that testing tools and processes are provided
• Check that detailed information, such as unresolved issues, are provided
• Ensure the date of the audit was recent

A vendor should not be considered compliant unless a full audit was performed by a reputable third party (or your own team) and the findings were all fixed (or none were found).

Create a monitoring plan

• Perform periodic smoke testing of key features (screen reader and keyboard navigation compatibility, color contrast, etc.)
• Bake accessibility and audit responsibility into vendor contracts to reduce costs on your end
• Perform additional audits if necessary (every 12-18 months, after major updates or redesigns, at contract renewal, etc.)
• Expect and plan for nonconformance (things may break over time!)

Create accommodation plans

• Ensure that your users can access features and content while vendors are fixing accessibility issues (get creative - you might need several options to accommodate everyone)
• Make sure these plans are temporary
• Be wary of quick fixes

Making change happen: how the power of storytelling can drive accessibility forward

Speakers: 
Jim LeBrecht, Producer, Director, Disability Rights Activist, and Filmmaker
Patrick Sturdivant, Vice President and Principal Strategy Consultant, Deque Systems, Inc.

Summary/Insights: Haley Troyer

The final keynote of axe-con featured a conversation between Jim LeBrecht and Patrick Sturdivant, two advocates from the disability community, as they shared their personal stories and efforts to improve accessibility. 

Jim, who uses a wheelchair, has been working to make the film industry more inclusive through his nonprofits, The 1IN4 Coalition and FWD-Doc. Jim created the Crip Camp documentary which was about Camp Jened, a summer camp for people with disabilities back in the 1950's through the 1970's. The success of this project led to Jim’s upcoming documentary Change, Not Charity: The Americans With Disabilities Act, premiering on PBS in March 2025.

Patrick, who lost his vision early in life due to glaucoma, spoke about his own journey navigating a world that wasn’t built for people with disabilities. He shared how, despite the lack of laws requiring accommodations, he received support in school and work. He also reflected on how things have improved over time, especially with technology. Both Jim and Patrick highlighted that disability rights go beyond politics, and it's important to stay united and organized to protect them.

They also discussed how to be a good ally to the disability community. The key is to educate yourself, ask people with disabilities what they need, and join support groups to better understand their struggles. The message was clear: “We’re no different than you are, we just do things differently than you.”

At the end of the session, Jim provided a few documentary recommendations. I’ll be sure to add them to my watch list!

• Unrest
• The Tuba Thieves
• I Didn’t See You There
• Patrice

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Typographer vs. Accessibility

Speaker:
Oliver Schöndorfer, Typography expert and freelance UI & app designer, Pimp My Type

Summary/Insights: Riley Rittenhouse

Oliver’s energy was unexpected but a great way to kick off the last day. He went through some common misconceptions designers have about typography and accessibility.

• Typography doesn’t have to be boring. Playful typefaces are fine in logos, headings, and short text, but should be avoided in essential areas like form fields.
• Sans serif vs serifs. While sans serifs are assumed to be more readable, it depends on context. Testing characters like "Il1 eco 0OC" helps determine the best typeface for accessibility and the overall readability of the typeface.
• Make it high contrast. Explained the importance of minimal contrast from WCAG standards.
• Use lots of spacing. Success criterion 1.4.12 provides spacing guidelines, but the main requirement is ensuring users can override defaults without breaking content or functionality.

Other things to keep in mind include making text large enough, not justifying text, using underlines and italics sparingly and avoiding long lines of all caps. Many of these principles can also be applied to print design. This was one of my favorite sessions from the whole week!

Digital Accessibility as a Professional Responsibility: People, Product, Process and Positioning

Speaker:
Ronise Nepomuceno, Digital Accessibility Manager, British Telecom (EE)

Summary/Insights: Riley Rittenhouse

Ronise went through the process for establishing a digital accessibility team at EE, responsible for ensuring WCAG compliance as a minimum standard and making accessibility a company-wide initiative. She showed a longer video showing some of the different interns/team members that were involved in interviewing and collecting feedback from people who use the app. It was nice to see, but didn’t show me how that feedback influenced actual change within the app.

This session was very dry and difficult to follow. The slides themselves were very text heavy and the use of large graphs and very small videos instead of guided walkthroughs made it more difficult to engage with the content. It seemed like many other people in the chat had similar opinions.

Designing consent: how accessible are cookie notices?

Speakers:
Sara Kjellstrand, Research Strategist, Funka Foundation
Malin Hammarberg, Senior UX Designer and Accessibility Specialist, Funka Foundation

Summary/Insights: Riley Rittenhouse

I really liked how they explained that cookie banners act as the front door of a website. We want users to see them right away, but we don’t want it to stop them from using the website and possibly navigating away. The session covered briefly covered legal requirements (GDPR, CPRA, etc.) and mostly focused on the user experience perspective, emphasizing the importance of consent and control over personal data.

Three user archetypes for cookie preferences:

• Accept all - quickly accepts to dismiss
• Reject all - strives to reject all cookies on all sites
• Contextual selectors - makes tailored decisions to reject or accept

Accessibility challenges were highlighted, particularly for screen reader users who may struggle to locate banners and for those using screen magnification, where banners can disappear from view.

Their main emphasis was the need for balance in providing enough information without overwhelming users. Using accordions for additional details can help those who want more context. Other best practices include ensuring visibility, clear headings, a navigable structure, mobile optimization, and avoiding excessive technical or legal jargon.

It’s Alive! Facing The Monsters Of Accessible Live Regions

Speaker:
Daniel Yuschick, Lead Design System Developer, Posti

Summary/Insights: Riley Rittenhouse

Teaching live regions through storytelling and zombies was definitely an unexpected but creative approach! Daniel explained ARIA live regions by telling the story of a zombie trying to order food online, making the topic engaging and memorable.

Key ARIA attributes covered:

• aria-live - designate an element as a live region with a politeness level
• aria-atomic - tell assistive technologies whether to announce an entire live region or only the changed content
• aria-busy - tell assistive technologies to wait before announcing the content within the live region
• aria-relevant - indicated what notifications the user agent will trigger when the accessibility tree within a live region changes
• role - uses specific HTML roles to inherit live behavior (alert and status)

A key takeaway was the idea that “no news is good news”—users should be alerted when something goes wrong, but constant updates aren’t necessary when everything is functioning normally. This was an excellent demo showcasing how screen readers handle content and how to enhance that experience for users.

Creating Inclusive Websites with Plain Language

Speakers:
Jay Brite, Content Strategist
Jackie Pysarchuk, Enterprise Content Strategist, American College of Cardiology

Summary/Insights: Riley Rittenhouse

Plain language makes it easier to read, understand and use your company’s communications. I'm not typically a content writer, but I think this is great to keep in mind when outlining a page and making sure that titles provide clear context.

Key principles:

• Writing simply is important - All readers benefit from writing that is focused on information that answers their questions or provides what they need.
• Avoid jargon and metaphors - Being understood is more important than sounding clever. Say exactly what you mean.
• Active language - get to the point and be transparent. Avoid passive voice and hidden verbs.
• Word substitutions - avoid formal, complex or long words where short, simple words will do. An example provided was a button that said “obtain assistance” vs one that said “get help”.

A helpful tip they shared, is to have someone else review your content or read it aloud to make sure it makes sense. Often, information can be cut in half without losing meaning. A resource they shared was plainlanguage.gov 

Final Thoughts

Ashley Helminiak

This was quite the conference! The talks I attended had definite themes around the June 28 deadline for the EAA, equal parts excitement and fear over strides made and yet to be made with AI in the industry, and genuine underlying anxiety and uncertainty regarding today's current government and political strife and its affects on accessibility and inclusion. It was oddly cathartic to virtually attend a conference from the comfort of my home where I could just tell I was communing with like-minded individuals that not only are hopeful for positive change, but actively working hard to make it happen. Thanks for a great conference, axe-con!

Haley Troyer

This conference is always such a whirlwind of great information and inspiring stories. I was especially happy to see the growth in neurodiversity representation, specifically in bringing neurodiverse voices into conversations surrounding UX design. With everything happening in the current political climate, it can be easy to feel defeated, but being surrounded by so many other people who share my values and who are still putting accessibility first was a breath of fresh air. I look forward to attending axe-con next year!

Riley Rittenhouse

Another great year at axe-con. It was inspiring to hear so many diverse perspectives on trending topics like AI and the current state of accessibility initiatives in the U.S. under the current administration. While the challenges can feel overwhelming at times, it was reassuring to see so many others navigating similar experiences. I’m excited to apply some of these insights to my own work and continue to learn more about accessibility.