You Can’t Afford to Get Digital Accessibility Unsuitable: Right here’s What Issues Most

Accessibility isn’t optionally available, it’s important: What I realized from our current digital accessibility roundtable.

In case your group is struggling to know methods to adjust to accessibility requirements like WCAG or PDF/UA—and even methods to start tackling doc remediation—you’re not alone.

Digital accessibility stays one of the vital misunderstood and inconsistently utilized facets of buyer communication right now. That’s precisely why I used to be excited to reasonable our current webinar dialogue with three main accessibility specialists: Duff Johnson (CEO of the PDF Affiliation), Audrey Cahais (Digital Options Government at CDP Communications), and Matt Harrison (Crew Chief on the Authorities of Canada). Collectively, we explored the real-world challenges organizations are dealing with and the steps they will take to construct a extra inclusive communication technique—with out being overwhelmed by the complexity.

We additionally gathered suggestions from greater than 40 webinar contributors to know their prime considerations. Their questions revealed a standard theme: most organizations are able to do the suitable factor—however they’re not sure the place to start out or what actually “counts” in terms of accessibility compliance.

WCAG vs. PDF/UA: You Want Each

Let’s begin by clearing up one of many largest misconceptions. WCAG (Internet Content material Accessibility Pointers) is the usual most individuals acknowledge—and in lots of nations, it’s the authorized benchmark. However as Duff Johnson emphasised, WCAG is deliberately broad and technology-agnostic. It outlines what accessible content material ought to do however doesn’t clarify how to realize that inside particular codecs like PDF.

PDF/UA (PDF/Common Accessibility) fills that hole. It’s a technical normal constructed particularly for PDF paperwork. It tells you methods to tag construction, outline studying order, guarantee navigation, and protect accessibility throughout use instances. One of the vital vital takeaways from our dialog was this: WCAG and PDF/UA aren’t competing requirements. They’re designed to work collectively—WCAG units the purpose; PDF/UA supplies the trail.

Compliance Is Simply the Beginning Level—Accessibility Is About Dignity

One of the vital memorable moments got here from Audrey Cahais, who reminded us that accessibility is about greater than legal guidelines and checklists. It’s about individuals. After we drive customers to ask for various codecs or wait days for readable content material, we’re sending the message that their wants are an afterthought.

True accessibility means everybody—no matter capacity—can have interaction with digital content material independently. And that’s not simply good ethics; it’s good buyer expertise. Customers don’t need to be singled out. They need parity, privateness, and dignity. One of the simplest ways to ship that’s to make accessibility a part of your normal workflows—not a particular request.

Fixing the Scale Downside: Methods to Make a Billion Paperwork Accessible

Which may sound like a lofty purpose, particularly if you happen to’re working with legacy archives. However Matt Harrison shared an modern method that modified the way in which many attendees had been excited about doc remediation.

His group archives over a billion paperwork utilizing a light-weight format (AFP), which they render to PDF solely when customers request them. As a substitute of manually changing archived content material, they created accessibility templates that work like blueprints. These templates are utilized in actual time—so when a consumer requests a doc, it’s mechanically transformed, tagged, and displayed as an accessible PDF. No bulk conversion. No re-tagging billions of recordsdata. Simply good automation.

This method doesn’t simply save time—it creates a scalable, sustainable mannequin for accessibility. It additionally proves that accessibility could be a byproduct of good design, not a separate, handbook burden.

Validation Instruments Are Useful—However Not Sufficient

One of the vital frequent questions we acquired through the webinar was about instruments. Can a validator let you know if a PDF is compliant? Can automation guarantee accessibility?

Audrey and Duff each emphasised that whereas instruments like PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) and VeraPDF are nice, they’re solely a part of the story. Automated checkers validate issues like construction, syntax, and font mapping. However they will’t all the time consider the consumer expertise. That requires human judgment—particularly in terms of content material order, alt textual content high quality, or the distinction between ornamental and significant parts.

Backside line: use validators, however don’t depend on them alone. Mix them with human overview, particularly on the template stage, to make sure constant, significant accessibility throughout all content material.

Begin The place You Can Make the Most Influence

If the concept of remediating each doc you’ve ever created sounds inconceivable, that’s as a result of it’s—not less than all of sudden. As Audrey put it, perfection isn’t the purpose; progress is.

Focus first on customer-facing paperwork that carry probably the most weight—account statements, payments, authorized notices, and different content material that customers depend on to handle their lives. For paperwork nonetheless in manufacturing, embed accessibility into your creation and approval workflows. And for archived content material, take a look at on-demand fashions or focused automation methods just like the one Matt described.

Keep in mind, accessibility isn’t a mission you full. It’s a functionality you construct—and strengthen over time.

Wish to dig deeper into these subjects and get sensible solutions to frequent accessibility questions?

We’ve packaged all the perfect insights from the roundtable right into a free useful resource:

You’ll get solutions to:

• What’s required for compliance?
• When (and the way) to make use of automation vs. handbook remediation
• Methods to validate PDF accessibility
• Why accessibility isn’t nearly compliance—it’s about belief

When you’re liable for buyer communications, content material governance, or digital expertise, this information will assist you transfer from confusion to confidence.

Let’s make accessibility a core a part of digital communications—not an afterthought.  Let me know if you happen to’d like a model tailor-made for a selected business.

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