Accessibility Club Summit 2025

Imagine a world where your mouse doesn’t work properly — just your keyboard. Where text plays hide-and-seek, but a screen reader always finds it. Welcome to a digital escape game set in a unique world where assistive and standard technologies swap roles. In this presentation, Olivia takes you behind the scenes of this game, designed to help you experience barriers firsthand.

Discover why simulating disabilities may not always be the best approach to bridging the empathy gap. So, what’s the alternative? Instead of simulating disabilities, Olivia simulates barriers. It doesn’t ask you to pretend to be someone you’re not; it asks you to step into a world that wasn’t designed for you.

It isn’t just about empathy — it’s about education, awareness, and those "aha" moments that change how we see the world. Find out how gamification transforms learning into an adventure everyone wants to join. Because when accessibility is fun, it reaches more people — and that’s a win for everyone!

Caitlin has known she has ADHD since she was 14. Growing up with that knowledge has been like having a secret cheat code. She has learned how to navigate daily life in a way that works for her. She doesn’t feel limited or impaired, yet ADHD is officially considered a disability. As she built her career as an Accessibility Consultant, she frequently encountered discussions about accessibility for cognitive disabilities, including ADHD. This made her wonder: does she really not experience limitations?

So, in true ADHD fashion, she went to bed one night, couldn’t stop thinking about it, grabbed her laptop, and dove into WCAG—analyzing every success criterion to see how it impacts her. Spoiler alert: way more than you’d expect! In this session, Caitlin shares her insights to inspire others and show that WCAG benefits far more people than we often realize.

This entry-level talk provides a crash course in the array of considerations one must make when creating data visualization. It describes the many use cases for data visualization and the possible accessibility implications inherent in them as well as best practices and examples for ensuring attractive, informative, and accessible charts, graphs, and infographics.

This talk is partly an inspirational story about how and when it’s best to start with such testing. The other part is a hands-on technical session based on real code taken from a dedicated repository. It features a simple React application and Playwright-based tests forming an accessibility test suite. This includes a functional client journey with keyboard-only navigation, accessibility tree snapshot creation, and a series of static code analyzers. Łukasz explains in detail the meaning and value these components provide. At the same time, the test suite’s engine is ready to copy, so attendees will be able to experiment with their own scenarios the very next day.

Nathalie and her colleagues have been developing a new, accessibility-focused onboarding experience for their iOS app. In this presentation, she shares key insights from their implementation, demonstrating pitfalls and best practices in designing and building an accessible SwiftUI app. SwiftUI is a declarative framework for building user interfaces for iOS. In her talk, Nathalie discusses how they leverage native components to take advantage of built-in accessibility features and which modifiers they use to make custom components more accessible. She also demonstrates how the team tests accessibility using VoiceOver and other testing tools. Additionally, she shares feedback from visually impaired users and explains how it has guided improvements to the app. This session provides valuable insights into accessibility challenges and solutions in mobile app development — specifically in SwiftUI — that can be applied in other contexts as well.

Despite the EAA law taking effect soon, not all companies and upper management perceive the same level of urgency and importance for this topic as others might. In this presentation, Leonie tells the story of her company, which faced the same issue — and how a small group of enthusiasts used their passion to build a company-wide network to get things moving, even without dedicated resources.

By ramping up knowledge wherever possible, building comprehensive networks, finding the right kind of allies, tailoring talks and workshops to different audiences, making the topic tangible, and emotionalising abstract figures — starting "little fires everywhere" — they managed to create real momentum.

Leonie also shares tips, examples, and alternative routes to offer a variety of possible actions for anyone looking to grow accessibility from the grassroots level.

This 1-day training event provides hands-on training in testing for accessibility. We will cover various testing methodologies including automated, manual, and use case testing and provide helpful job aids for each. We will also cover how to configure and use various types of assistive technologies and discuss how to use each during manual and use case testing.

Note: This is not training about how to use assistive technologies. While we will be covering assistive technologies and will also be using them periodically, this training is not focused on testing a system for compatibility with screenreaders. This is a holistic training aimed at all facets of accessibility, which extends far beyond users of specific assistive technologies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is both exciting and intimidating. It can see and hear better than many humans, making it a powerful tool for enhancing accessibility. However, the topic is controversial. Within the accessibility community, some view it as a solution to all problems, while others remain skeptical.

In this workshop, we will present a balanced perspective on the current state of affairs:

• What is the current status of AI-infused accessibility tools?
• Can AI genuinely help us create accessible content for everyone?
• Is Agentic AI the answer to inaccessibility?

In the second part of the workshop, we will build our own "Testing Tool" using the concepts of "Dive Coding" (no coding experience required).

We will conclude with an open discussion about how AI will shape the future of accessibility.

In this workshop, we will explore the theory of "intersectionality," a concept introduced by African-American scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. Intersectionality describes how each individual consists of multiple identity traits—such as gender, ethnicity, social class, physical and mental abilities, and many others. These traits influence not only personal experiences but also access to opportunities, privileges, and encounters with discrimination in everyday life, including the digital world.

We will examine how these overlapping identities shape users' experiences on the web and how intersectional approaches can be applied in web design to create a more accessible and inclusive online environment.

The goal is to develop a deeper understanding of intersectionality in digital accessibility and explore practical ways to use this knowledge to create more inclusive and user-friendly websites.

As of June 28, the "Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz" will come into effect in Germany, marking an important step towards improving digital accessibility. While more companies, web designers, and accessibility professionals focus on inclusive experiences, the needs of neurodivergent individuals are still often overlooked in planning.

In this 3-hour session, we will explore the importance of neurodiversity in web design. Neurodiversity includes neuronormative (about 80%) and neurodivergent individuals (about 20%), such as autistic people and those with dyslexia, ADHD, and giftedness. I will focus on these conditions and what is needed to break down barriers for neurodivergent users. Practical strategies will be discussed to ensure websites are inclusive for all users, not just those with physical disabilities but also cognitive and neurological differences.

By considering neurodiversity early in the design process, we can create more accessible and user-friendly digital experiences.

In this session (following individual sessions of Landu and Shino on neurodiversity and intersectionality) we will explore how these concepts shape inclusive web design. While these prior sessions complement this collaborative workshop, you do not need to have attended them to participate. We will begin with a brief introduction to neurodiversity to ensure everyone is on the same page.

The session will be highly interactive, as we will develop neurodivergent personas and discuss their needs for barrier-free web experiences. Participants can collaborate to design solutions for these personas, focusing on how websites can be more accessible for neurodivergent users. We will then share ideas and reflect on how to integrate these needs into real-world web design practices.

This session offers a unique opportunity to creatively think about inclusive design. By considering diverse cognitive and neurological experiences, we can build truly accessible digital environments.