Mainstreaming the accessibility question

On November 27, 2011, a Los Angeles-based web developer, Joe Devon, wrote a blog post titled: “CHALLENGE: Accessibility know-how needs to go mainstream with developers. NOW.” Devon’s central thesis was that digital accessibility – the idea that apps and websites need to be designed in a manner that is accessible to persons with disabilities – is not a part of mainstream conversations, resulting in the design of a digital marketplace that is not disabled-friendly. He, therefore, proposed the idea of having a Global Accessibility Awareness Day in the following terms: “Let’s agree on a Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This will be a day of the year where web developers across the globe try to raise awareness and know-how on making sites accessible. On this day, every web developer will be urged to test at least one page on their site in an accessibility tool. After fixing up the page, they are urged to blog about what they changed and inspire others to follow suit.” He proposed having meetups, hackathons, and other such awareness-generation events.

On May 15, 2025, the world celebrated the 14th edition of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) in a variety of ways. Just to give three examples – Samsung organised a unique sound experience at St Paul’s Cathedral in London; Google launched new AI updates on Android and Chrome platforms; and the GAAD Foundation launched an accessibility AI checker.

Not to be left behind, India hosted many interventions on this day. I was part of one of them – the Inclusive India Summit conducted in Delhi by my organisation, Mission Accessibility, in collaboration with stakeholders from the government and civil society. The summit was an opportunity to redouble our commitment to creating a more accessible India, in particular through the Sugamya Bharat application. This application allows people with disabilities to report accessibility grievances in the physical, information, and communication technology or transport domains, to be resolved by competent authorities.

And yet, we must ask ourselves: how many people outside the disability ecosystem were aware of GAAD until you read this column? Over the years, I have observed a troubling trend: people with disabilities and their organisations, in event after event, pat themselves on the back for their contribution to the field, while the rest of society remains ignorant of their challenges, struggles, and capabilities.

GAAD is an important intervention to address this lacuna, but we need much more than a day in the year. Accessibility must be built into the design of every new offering at source – why do we, even in 2025, produce touchscreen-based point-of-sale devices that prevent blind people like me from independently making financial transactions? Why do a large number of movies on OTT platforms still not have audio descriptions, same language captions, and Indian Sign Language for the benefit of visually and hearing impaired viewers? Why are buildings still constructed without an accessibility audit?

As a lawyer, my response to these accessibility violations is to use the law when efforts to persuade the powers to be prove futile. And there is much that legal interventions have achieved in recent times. We now have central government guidelines mandating that feature films in theatres must have accessibility features by March 2026. In February this year, 155 digital platforms were penalised for failing to commission an accessibility audit. The Supreme Court has directed the union government to frame a set of non-negotiable accessibility norms in each sector, with appropriate compliance mechanisms.

And yet, much as I am a proponent of using the law to secure greater accessibility, I am conscious of the limits of the law. I often hear that legal efforts may reduce accessibility to a compliance tick-box, something to be achieved just to avoid legal trouble. While this is a valid concern, my response is – let it at least first become a compliance tick-box before we get more. Legal pressure needs to be combined with targeted sensitisation efforts and an appeal to institutions to become accessible to expand their consumer base. What the size of this consumer base will be, we will know only after a platform becomes disabled-friendly. But even if it is small, accessibility is the right way to go – legally, morally, and commercially.

(Rahul Bajaj is a practising lawyer with expertise in disability rights and IP law, and is co-founder of Mission Accessibility. He wears more hats than he can himself sometimes count)