Notes # 11: India's Voice-First Revolution, EU's Social Plan, EAA Notifications In The Netherlands...

Personal Notes

Last week, I started using Duolingo to learn Spanish. This is an addictive app with its reinforcement activities, streak feature, social feed, and competitive leaderboard. Ah, these leaderboards… I am generally a quiet and peaceful person, but when you give me a challenge, I become one of the most ambitious person in the world. I challenged myself to be first in the Sapphire League, but my rival Becky (I don’t know who s/he is) was also very ambitious. At the beginning of the week, Becky widened the gap by 700 XP. Then Duolingo showed me a pop‑up saying “Earn up to 300 XP.” I decided to do the activity, but I couldn’t. It was a time challenge that required me to complete all the matchings in one minute. As a partially‑sighted person, I use the app with a magnifier and constantly swipe the screen to see different parts of it. For this reason, completing a time‑limited challenge is nearly impossible for me; I lose most of my time while swiping and trying to see the options.

This is not a WCAG violation or the most important accessibility issue because time challenges are optional features and you don’t have to do them. On the other hand, obsessive disabled users like me experience difficulties. Anyway, at the end of the week I beat Becky and I am now in the Ruby League!

News

The Voice-First Revolution: India’s Bold Roadmap For Digital Inclusion

Source: Assistive Technology Blog

The Ministry of Electronics & IT in India unveiled a comprehensive strategy to develop inclusive voice technologies. The goal of the Ministry is to break literacy barriers and ensure intuitive use of voice‑recognition technologies. To make voice technologies usable for everyone, they introduced a Developer’s Toolkit that explains how to create an inclusive dataset that respects all linguistic diversities. In this way, “developers are encouraged to define ‘wishlists’ that include age distribution, gender representation, and rural accents to ensure AI doesn’t just work for the urban elite.” This is a great example of universal design. The importance of voice technologies is growing, and their accuracy will increase with such inclusive policies and diverse datasets.

Commission Proposes New Measures To Fight Poverty And Improve The Lives Of Persons With Disabilities

Source: European Commission

The European Commission has unveiled a social plan aimed at eradicating poverty and promoting the rights of persons with disabilities across the EU. While the main focus of the plan is socio‑economic issues and poverty, there is little emphasis on AI. Generally, the plan consists of articles on employment, housing, and the EU disability card, and we normally do not see an emphasis on AI or digital issues in such social plans. For this reason, seeing the theme “investing in assistive technologies such as AI tools” in a social plan makes me realize the increasing interaction between social and technological issues.

AFM – EAA Notifications

Source: AFM

The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets published an announcement for the organisations that fall within the scope of the European Accessibility Act (EAA). According to the announcement, “companies should notify the supervisory authority if they are not compliant with the European Accessibility Act or if they invoke an exception.” The announcement also included the questions that must be answered in the notification form. I realized that this procedure applies only to organisations. Therefore, notifying the authority about exception requests makes sense, but I can’t understand why an organisation would report its own non‑compliance.

Inspirations

I Tested Airport Kiosks Across America. What I Found Was Not Great

Source: Ryan Jones - LinkedIn

In April, Ryan Jones visited four airports across the United States to experience accessibility of self‑service kiosks. In the U.S., the Department of Transportation (DOT) has strict accessibility regulations, such as the Air Carrier Access Act, but Jones’s experience highlights a low level of implementation. In the article he notes that accessibility hardware is often present but non‑functional, low usage volumes make accessibility impractical, only wheelchair accessibility is implemented under the banner of ADA compliance, and accessibility appears on the first page but not integrated into the user flow.

The AI Design Gap: A Student’s Journey in Accessifying Visual Layouts

Source: Blind Access Journal

I love stories about AI democratizing the world. In the article, a blind student experiments with an AI solution to understand visual layouts and participate in design courses equally. Even though the output is a failure, this is a hopeful journey that “AI will become the ‘visual eyes’ for blind designers, developers, and students, allowing us not only to participate in design courses, but also to master the visual language that has long been a barrier.”

The Value Of Accessibility In The Agentic Web Era

Source: Accessibility Works

“It is predicted that AI agent activity on the web will surpass human‑driven search activity by the end of 2026. An AI agent parses the same accessibility structure that a screen reader does. Therefore, when accessibility work is done well, AI agents can navigate, read, and act on the site.” For now, accessibility is important not only for SEO, but also for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).

In Detail: What Does The European Commission’s Mid‑Term Report Say To Us?

Read this article on its own page

The European Commission published the mid‑term report on The Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021‑2030. In the mid‑term report, the work carried out over the past five years is discussed in detail. Under each section there is an additional part titled “Remaining challenges to address”. This section outlines future plans. Below, I have compiled the items related to digital accessibility.

• It is stated that a working group will be convened for the EAA to share information for the implementation of the law. Additionally, it is mentioned that resources will be produced regarding the accessibility requirements covered by the law. We know that a new version of EN 301 549 will be released this year. Guideline documents will also be useful for addressing the remaining questions.
• Within the European Union, the European Disability Card and the European Parking Card, prepared to ensure equal enjoyment of rights for persons with disabilities, are scheduled to be delivered to disabled individuals in June 2028. Discussions about the accessibility of the cards are ongoing. The European Disability Forum most recently provided feedback on the tactile markings and RFID chips on the cards.
• Accessibility of elections is one of the core topics addressed. There are plans to digitise the voting process and, through this, make it accessible. However, I could not find detailed information on how in the report.
• In addition to the physical accessibility of courthouses, steps have been taken to improve the accessibility of online legal information, but further improvements are needed according to the report.
• Within inclusive education initiatives, it is specifically highlighted that digital learning materials are not accessible.
• The Commission acknowledges that its own website needs to improve its accessibility. It also states that the content should be personalisable and discoverable with artificial intelligence.