Beyond the EAA Deadline: What Really Needs to Change?

The European Accessibility Act came into force at the end of June after a flurry of countdown timers, and compliance threats across everyone’s feed.

While we can agree that the EAA is an important step forward, it’s clear that it remains a relatively small one. Media coverage in many European countries has been almost non-existent, and most governments have yet to address its significance with any depth or visibility.

The EAA has hit its deadline. Now what?

Now that the countdown is over, where do we go from here? While everybody was talking about being ready for the EAA in time, it seems that the main purpose of the Act was left aside a little. Instead of relying on threats of litigation to drive change, we should be concentrating on finding solutions.

For starters, many organisations are still trying to understand what accessibility actually means beyond ticking a few WCAG boxes. The EAA is often advertised using legal jargon that may be understood by large companies and compliance teams, but it should be fully understandable to product owners, designers, developers, and content creators, the foundation of a product/service.

For teams who are already stretched thin or have never had proper training in inclusive design, digital accessibility can feel a bit overwhelming. This is the “perfect recipe” to feel stuck and not take action.

Now that the first step has been taken, the focus must shift. Let’s channel our energy into support and education. Let’s support companies with accessibility challenges they are now about to face.

But what challenges are these? Where do we begin? What do we have to change?

Building Digital Inclusion

Our ultimate goal should be building digitally inclusive products that truly work for everyone. If you are here right now, looking for information on turning this into reality, that is already a very good start.

Because we want to build digital inclusion beyond web accessibility, our recommendation is always to develop things with everyone in mind from day one. The way to do this, is to dive into digital inclusion and understand its purpose beyond regulatory pressure or the fear of penalties.

Understand

Understanding is the first step. Read about digital inclusion, join communities, and explore how small changes can impact everyday lives for people with disabilities. Although the improvement of accessibility benefits everyone, there are daily tasks that seem imperceptible but that actually take away people’s independence.

We have created a Digital Inclusion Guide with the purpose of bringing awareness and discussion around how we can improve things online by recognising digital barriers and working on them.

Analyse

The second step is to analyse your own digital product, your website, app, forms, and emails. Do they offer different ways of being understood? Would someone who is blind find it difficult to navigate? What about someone with limited mobility?

We are not yet talking about doing an accessibility audit, although this is highly important. But observe your digital presence and analyse if someone would be excluded from understanding it. We are talking about creating an inclusive mindset.

Act

At this point, you have probably recognised that your service can do better when thinking about digital inclusion. According to the WebAIM Report, only 4% of the top million websites are accessible to people with disabilities. There’s a long journey ahead, but it all starts with the first step towards doing better.

In this article, we prepared a comprehensive European Accessibility Act Guide to help teams work towards compliance from the very beginning. After that, you can also download our EAA Checklist and start adding it to your tasks.

Redefining Digital Inclusion

At Nexus Inclusion, digital inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is to move beyond digital accessibility and ensure that inclusion is considered at every step of the product development process from idea, design, development, testing, content management, product management and maintaining inclusion post go live.

It is important for us that the barriers of making something accessible and inclusive are broken down and that it is simply part of the overall steps that every company takes in releasing digital products to their customers. We focus on finding the best solution and not the problem.

And this is just the beginning. Founded by accessibility advocate Kyran O’Mahoney, our team brings together experts to solve real-world challenges.

Now that we have explored what is digital inclusion and the mission we have in the digital world, it is time to introduce our tool. We have designed it to help companies with detection, analysis and guidance towards web accessibility and inclusion. Sign up to join our waiting list and be the first to know about our tool, training, and resources for teams building inclusive digital futures.