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Accessibility Industry Update: April 2025

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Welcome to the QualityLogic industry update for the month of April 2025!

This past month has been one for the books. With four conferences, multiple presentations/workshops, features, and dozens of impactful conversations—it felt like we spent more time on the road than at the office, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

As always, let us know if you think we’ve missed something, or share the link with your colleagues or partners who may benefit from some or all of this information. You can also sign up to receive these accessibility updates via email.

Contents:

Conferences and Events

Tech Access OK

We spent part of the first week in March (March 4 – 5) at Tech Access Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. If you haven’t heard of it before, Tech Access is a hidden gem hosted by Oklahoma ABLE Tech, which is part of a national network funded through the Assistive Technology (AT) Act. The AT Act helps states provide tools and services that make everyday life more accessible for people with disabilities. You could really feel that mission in the way the event was put together.

The conference is completely free to attend, both in person and virtually, which makes it super welcoming. And even though it’s free, the speaker lineup was fantastic. There were highly experienced people from higher ed, government, advocacy groups, and accessibility consulting who shared practical, thoughtful insights on how to build more inclusive digital experiences. It felt like a very grounded and collaborative space.

Feel free to check out the Tech Access sessions.

The 40th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference

Shortly after Tech Access, we had the pleasure of attending the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in Anaheim. It was an amazing couple of days filled with new ideas, invigorating conversations, lots of laughs, and good people connecting to help one another out.

Our favorite part of all was meeting up with friends (old and new) to talk about all the challenges you are overcoming and neat things that you are working on.

We left feeling energized and optimistic about the future of this industry. Here are some of our key takeaways. Miss us at the event? We live for a good chat, so drop us a line at any time!

Microsoft Ability Summit

Microsoft’s 2025 Ability Summit took place on March 18 and attracted over 20,000 virtual attendees from over 164 countries.

It predominantly showcased the work that Microsoft has been doing at the intersection of AI and accessibility. Highlights include:

  • The new Xbox Adaptive Joystick is now available for purchase on the Microsoft store. Announced a few months ago, the joystick provides customization options for gamers with mobility impairments. It seamlessly interacts with existing setups by connecting to a user’s PC or directly through an existing Xbox controller (adaptive controller included).
  • Microsoft’s packaging and content team published an in-depth (75 page) guide on creating accessible packaging. What is accessible packaging, and why is this a thing?
    • It goes back to inclusive design. Why wouldn’t you make your products easy to open and start using? If the first impression customers get is struggling or being altogether unable to open your product, it is likely to sour their experience pretty quickly—not a good impression.
  • The Sign Language View feature of Microsoft teams will be upgraded this year, making it possible to feature anyone using sign language more prominently as a speaker.
  • Copilot is helping neurodiverse employees be more productive at work when it comes to recollection, focus, and connection, per an EY study.
  • The next version of Narrator will include rich AI-based image descriptions. Expect this to drop in the spring Windows Insider Preview build. Expect wider availability in the months that follow.
  • The speech recognition project out of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is creating a large database of voice recordings from around 1,500 participants that can be used to make speech recognition more accurate, especially when it comes to non-standard speech. Case and point, Microsoft integrated the dataset and was able to improve Windows Speech Recognition by up to 60%.
  • Finally, the Azure team talked about how GitHub Copilot is being used to help developers write more accessible code.

Changes to Colorado OIT Rulemaking on the Horizon

As reported by Converge Accessibility:

The Colorado Office of Information Technology (OIT) has released amended rules under House Bill 21-1110, refining the state’s digital accessibility standards for public entities effective July 1, 2025. Here’s a refresher, as it’s been some time since we’ve talked about Colorado’s two accessibility bills:

  • HB 21-1110: Imposes fines for the digital assets (documents and websites) of public entities in Colorado that fail to comply with WCAG 2.1 level AA. The deadline was originally set for July 1, 2024.
  • HB 24-1454: Extends the deadline to July 1, 2025, reason being insufficient time and resources to make changes. This grace period is only applicable to institutions that could provide a written plan and demonstrate a good-faith effort to comply by the 2025 deadline.

On March 20, the OIT held two sessions to hear comments from stakeholders. More info can be found in the Converge Accessibility article, but there was widespread concern that removing the grace period on July 1 would put entities who rely on it in a dangerous position. We will have to see what happens with the next draft, though we believe there is a good chance the bill will be made to look more like the Title II final rule.

Massive Layoffs Hit the Department of Education: Everything You Need to Know

President Trump took steps to make good on his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education as a means of returning authority to the states.

On March 11, 2025, the Department of Education announced that it was eliminating half of its workforce—around 2,000 out of an estimated 4,200 employees. Reports indicate that those impacted were given a mere thirty minutes before their access was terminated, leaving the department in a state of chaos.

These efforts were escalated a few days later when, on March 20, Trump signed an executive order (entitled Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities), which calls for the complete closure of the Department of Education. The order blames the agency, established in 1979, for creating federal overreach and contributing to historically low levels of mathematical understanding and reading comprehension.

Legal experts were quick to point out that since the department was established by congress, it cannot technically be dissolved without congressional authority. So, while the order makes a clear statement of intent, the capabilities of the White House are legally constrained to a reduction in the size of the agency and consolidating responsibilities under the executive branch.

A day following the order’s signing, initial plans were published outlining how current responsibilities would be distributed. The $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio would shift to the Small Business Administration (SBA), while special education and nutrition programs would move to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At this, accessibility advocates were quick to point out red flags, chief among them being the fact that the Department of Education has historically played a significant part in enforcing IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), which ensures that schools provide a free and appropriate education to students with disabilities. Since the HHS is already under significant strain due to staff cuts, and not all states possess the resources and political will to prioritize accessibility, students and their families could be left without recourse when schools do not provide adequate support.

The workforce cuts and subsequent EO triggered swift legal backlash as well, with Democratic Attorneys General in Washington, D.C., and 20 states suing the Trump administration in the court of the State of Massachusetts. They claim that dismantling the Department of Education is not only unlawful, but the firings leave it incapacitated and unable to perform its intended function.

What We’ve Been Reading

As always, let us know if you think we’ve missed something, or share the link with your colleagues or partners who may benefit from some or all of this information. You can also sign up to receive these accessibility updates via email.

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