Creating an Accessible Digital Future | Judy Brewer | TEDxMIT

Getting online can give people access to science, technology, and the world of ideas. Over a billion people in the world have some kind of disability—but we’re still putting barriers in front of them in the online world. Inclusive design allows us to design better technologies that everyone can use.

Judy Brewer works on accessibility of the digital world at the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide accessibility guidance for the web, on descriptions for images and video, captions for audio, interoperability for speech recognition, and sites that are easier to learn for people with cognitive disabilities. Accessibility is also important for mobile phones, digital books, online games, telepresence robots, virtual reality and more.

An international community of people working on digital accessibility is improving awareness, rights, and resources for accessibility. Accessibility is now recognized as part of corporate social responsibility and as an innovation driver; and these changes are contributing to improvements in products and services.

But we need many more hands at the table, on everything from accessibility of town websites to leveraging machine learning. Learn more about this talk, and join us in building an accessible digital future at w3.org/WAI/ Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx