Events & Activities

Come hang out and celebrate GAAD with people passionate about accessibility and inclusive design in the Bay Area, on a friendly relaxed Thursday evening. We’ll meet at Spark Social, an outdoor food truck park designed for communities and families.

Join us for an inspiring Fireside Chat where we explore how journey of the disability sector in the last 40 years in India. While the evolution of life is a familiar concept, have you ever paused to think about how solutions for persons with disabilities have evolved? Just think about how a wheelchair has transformed over time, from a basic manual design to today’s motorized, customized, and terrain-friendly models. Changes didn’t happen overnight; they emerged from a growing understanding of individual needs, innovation, and a commitment to inclusion. This Fireside Chat will explore how solutions have grown more inclusive and person-centric, shaped by a solution mindset that focuses not just on what’s available, but on what’s truly usable, affordable, and scalable.

Panelists: Shivakumar N and Soma Banerjee from EnAble India

Moderator: Sayomdeb Mukerjee

Date: 15th May 2025

Timing: 05:00 PM to 06:00 PM

Venue: Zoom

https://enableindia.zoom.us/j/88642682569?pwd=VbbLiHXIHcrTr3xtuoets2XVb52Ix4.1

Meeting ID: 886 4268 2569

Passcode: 369956

Let’s come together to celebrate the progress made—and explore what more we can do. We look forward to having you with us for this meaningful dialogue.

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day on 15 May, 2025, join us for a practical, hands-on workshop “Designing for Everyone – Digital Accessibility in Action” led by Dr. Chandra Harrison, Managing Director of Access Advisors. Dr. Chandra Harrison is a seasoned user researcher, author, lecturer, and accessibility advocate based in Christchurch, NZ. She brings both deep professional expertise and lived experience with ADHD and chronic health conditions to her work—and to this workshop. This 2-hour session is designed to equip you with accessibility know-how you can apply across digital product design. Whether you’re a designer, developer, or curious creator, you’ll leave with knowledge and skills to build more inclusive experiences for everyone.

What you’ll learn:

✅ How to integrate accessibility into your design process from the start
✅ What screen readers are, how they work, and how to design for them
✅ How to use keyboard navigation in testing and interaction design
✅ How to choose accessible colour palettes?
✅ How to create clear layout structures with headings and hierarchy ✅ How to design visual elements with inclusive alternatives

👉🏽 Note: You will be going through activities, so bring a mobile phone, tablet or laptop to participate!

🦻🏽 If you have hearing needs, please let us know so that we can accommodate them.

Details:

📅 Date: Thursday, 15 May 2025

⏰ Time: 5:30 – 8:00pm

📍 Location: Potentia, near Britomart, Auckland, NZ

💸 Tickets: $60 NZD

🍽 Thank you to our venue and nibbles sponsor for networking, Potentia NZ — Share your good times with @uxauckland @haunanipao @access-advisors-nz @access_advisors_nz #UXAuckland #UXAwesome #UXAccessibility Here’s our social things – https://linktr.ee/uxauckland

On May 15th, TOTHOMweb will host an online event as part of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) to raise awareness about digital accessibility. The event will feature a roundtable with individuals with disabilities who will demonstrate how they navigate websites and applications, sharing the barriers they face in their daily online interactions. Daniel Montalvo (W3C) and David Sabaté (CEO of TOTHOMweb) will also explain key accessibility standards and their legal implications. The session will be moderated by Meritxell Aymerich and Iván Novegil, who will also share their perspective as blind professionals. The event will include live subtitles and sign language interpretation.

It’s time for our yearly tradition with a meetup on GAAD, (Global Accessibility Awareness Day). And we’ll be hosted again by Spotify at their headquarters at Regeringsgatan 13. It will be an evening of awesome talks, good discussions and friendly people. Don’t miss this! We will have four lightning talks (10-15 min each) and one keynote. Here are the lightning talks: Scaling accessibility for your organization Serah Kiburu – Senior Accessibility Engineer, Spotify. “Innovation and progress in the tech ecosystem are largely powered by extensive experimentation and fast prototyping. Often, this means that there is a very short and strict checklist that guides the definition of what is ready for launch, and accessibility is not always high on this list for many product teams and organizations. This talk will go over some of Spotify’s approaches to build an accessibility-centric culture across design, product, engineering and people teams, and will highlight some key lessons learnt along the way.” Innovating for Inclusive Touch – Breaking the Screen Barrier Daniel Göransson – Accessibility Clippy® at Axess Lab. “Join us for a demo of a new solution designed to make touchscreens usable for people with vision impairments. Daniel will share the thinking and development process behind the innovation, offering practical insights for anyone working to improve digital accessibility.” ChatGPT Didn’t Know About Crip Life — So I Changed That. Emma Åstrand, Crip Advocate/Disability Theorist. “A talk on how to turn a clueless AI into a crip advocate. Expect a crash course on disability identity, technical rebellion and a reminder that even Chat can learn to do better.” “Are there any good bands from Malawi?” – or: how to build an accessible musical world map. Tommy Feldt, UX designer and accessibility specialist at Useit. “Music should be universal! In this session Tommy Feldt will demonstrate how he made Explr fm – an interactive world map for exploring your music taste – accessible for users with disabilities and assistive technologies. Live demo on stage promised!” Keynote speaker (~30 min): How does tech enable me as deafblind? Torbjörn Svensson, Deafblind lecturer, adventurer and inspirer “In life with deafblindness, the digital world has brought many opportunities. Torbjörn will lecture from his perspective, as Deafblind, on digital accessibility and how it is something that everyone benefits from.”

In this episode, we will explore a bit tools like AcessMonitor, MyMonitor, and the Portuguese Accessibility Observatory. We will talk about how these tools help both public and private organizations meet EN 301 549 standards and improve accessibility across digital services. And we will wrap up with a practical walkthrough on evaluating a real website and building a cross-functional roadmap for accessibility. Perfect for UX designers, developers, and digital teams aiming to create more inclusive user experiences.

Comprehensive 4-week online accessibility training designed to educate development teams on how to develop an accessibility mindset and create fully accessible and legally compliant websites.

Barrierefreiheit ist heute wichtiger denn je. In einer digitalen Welt sollte jede Person Zugang zu Informationen haben, unabhängig von individuellen Bedarfen. Doch oft sind digitale Dokumente und Unterlagen voller Hürden, die viele Menschen ausschließen. In diesem Workshop zeigen wir euch erste einfache Schritte zur Gestaltung möglichst barrierearmer digitaler Unterlagen und Dokumente. Formatvorlagen, Überschriften, Designs, Gliederungen, Tabellen, Kontraste, alternative Bildbenennungen – alle diese Faktoren tragen dazu bei, wie gut Lehr- und Lernmaterialien, die ihr für euer Studium anfertigt, von anderen Menschen erfasst und verarbeitet werden können. Viele Schritte für eine zugängliche Gestaltung von digitalen Unterlagen können leicht in den Alltag übernommen werden; es müssen nur ein paar Basics gekannt und angewendet werden. Wir erklären euch, welche und wie genau das funktioniert!

Public sector services need to work for everyone. Unlike private sector businesses, public organisations cannot exclude anyone or focus on a narrow user group. German accessibility law, the Basic Law – also known as Grundgesetz – and EU legislation demand this. Various public sector organisations have been building significant capacity and capability in-house. In the May edition of the ‘Öffentliches Gestalten’ meetup, we want to hear from representatives of several German public sector organisations about their efforts to design and develop the most inclusive products and services:

• Danny Koppenhagen, Deutsche Bahn/DB Systel
• Marion Couesnon , DigitalServices des Bundes
• Susanne Henatschel, DigitalServices des Bundes

The federal government’s DigitalService is hosting the meetup at its Kreuzberg office’s top floor with rooftop access. All presentations will be given in English. Questions in the later discussion part can be raised either in English or German. The event is jointly organised and hosted by CityLAB Berlin and DigitalService.

Beginner friendly webinar for those getting started with Website Accessibility. If you’ve ever wondered how to make your website more inclusive, this session is for you. You’ll learn how simple changes — like clearer text, better image descriptions, and more mindful design choices — can open up your content to more people, grow your audience, and reflect your values.