On the third Thursday of May, we celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD "started" on Sunday, November 27, 2011, when Joe Devon penned a post on MySQLTalk.com challenging his fellow back-end programmers to increase their knowledge about accessibility. "Let’s work together and fix this oversight in our knowledge." See Joe Devon’s post here.
Then a completely random event occurred. An accessibility professional in Toronto, Jennison Asuncion, came across a tweet from Devon:
And voila! The two men joined forces using their respective influence in the industry, and the first Global Accessibility Awareness Day was born.
Be Part of the Conversation
So, what can you do to help spread the word about accessibility? Try learning a new tool like VoiceOver or NVDA screen readers. Learn the Web Contact Accessibility Guidelines. Research and keep up on current legal cases around digital accessibility. Go "mouseless" for an hour and navigate your favorite website using only the keyboard. Post on your favorite social media outlet the importance of designing with accessibility in mind. Create an event, attend an event and conduct an automated accessibility scan with a tool like DubBot ... bet you’ll be surprised!
Above all, keep talking about it, keep thinking about it, keep learning about it, and keep creating digital access, opportunity and inclusion.
Here are some other ways to start spreading the word about accessibility:
- Participate Directly
- Spread Awareness
- GAAD 2022 Event List (Note: Some event has already taken place.)
Resources
- Twitter handles:
- Global Accessibility Awareness Day - @gbla11yday
- Jennison Asuncion - @Jennison
- Joe Devon - @joedevon
- Global Accessibility Awareness Day on Facebook
- Global Accessibility Awareness Day (Website)
- Joe Devon, GAAD co-founder, is the 2020 AIR Program Chair1 - Jessica Looney, Knowbility
