How the International Community of Experts Makes the Internet More Accessible

According to the World Health Organization 16% of the world's population has disabilities. It is more than a billion of people all over the world who cannot access websites designed without taking into account web accessibility (WA) features. The growing number of disabled individuals is one of the main reasons why WA is so important.

The history of WA can be traced back to the 90’s, when the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) – the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web, posted several pages dedicated to accessibility for people with disabilities. In 1997 the W3C officially launched Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The aim was to develop guidelines, tools, educational and informational programs in this area.

Over time, the Internet has become an increasingly important resource in various aspects of life: education, employment, public services, trade, healthcare, recreation and much more. Therefore, today it is especially important that individuals with different abilities have equal access and opportunities on the Internet.

However, there is a significant accessibility gap and barrier for disabled persons. According to Pew Research, 23% of respondents with disabilities say that they have never been online, compared with 8% of non-disabled respondents. Additional efforts are needed to increase WA and involvement of the group. For this purpose, various competitive events are held, where enthusiasts from all over the world improve already existing accessibility features, create new ones, offer prototypes.

To this end the best developers from all over the world took part in the IAHD DEI Web Accessibility Hackathon, which took place from September 22 to 24, 2023. The purpose of the hackathon was to develop a project or a prototype aimed at improving the availability of web applications.

For 48 hours the participants were engaged in the development of their own projects. As a result, various extensions, plug-ins and even full-fledged websites, maximally adapted for people with disabilities, were presented. Among the numerous solutions, the most attention was drawn by the project, that used a set of modern technologies to create a powerful and flexible web application corresponding to WCAG 2.0. The prototype fully covered the basic principles of accessibility: perceptibility, operability, understandability, and robustness. It also provided a functionality of simple integration into third-party applications at various stages of the lifecycle.

Recognized experts in the field of software development, quality assurance and design were invited as judges. "I believe that through such events we are making the world better. Web accessibility criteria are rarely taken into account during software development. I hope such events will remind that not every person can fully interact with the outside world. It is necessary to know, remember and take into account when creating applications," summed up Vital Shauchuk, one of the international hackathon judges, an expert in the field of software quality assurance and testing.