Explore how different industries are responding to digital accessibility today. In this session, you will look at current trends in digital accessibility across all industries.

1. Digital Accessibility: It’s All We Do
State of Digital
Accessibility (2020)
May 27th, 2020
Timothy Springer
Level Access | Confidential and Proprietary

2. Agenda
1. Are people with disabilities uniquely at
risk from COVID-19?
2. Why do organizations implement
accessibility programs?
3. Where are programs focused today?
4. What does that mean for video – live
and recorded?
5. Q&A
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3. Are people with
disabilities
uniquely at risk
from COVID-19?
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4. Vulnerable populations will bear the brunt of the impact of
COVID-19
• Older populations, people with disabilities
and people that are poor will bear the brunt
of the impact for COVID-19
− Materially worse outcomes from infection
correlated with age, income
− Poor countries can’t afford control mechanisms of
rich countries
• For people with disabilities expect
− Increased risk of hospitalization from COVID-19
− Increased risk of death from COVID-19
− Disproportionate impact from the disruption of
services
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COVID-19 primary risk factors:
• Age
• Pre-existing medical conditions
• Poverty
• Crowding
• Race
• Gender
• Use of certain medications
• Certain occupations
• Pregnancy
Source: Assessing Risk Factors for Severe COVID-19 Illness (US CDC),
COVID-19 Situation Report – 51 (WHO)

5. Hospitalization Risk - Age
5 | July 11, 2019
Disability Prevalence By Age
55.8%
37.5%
29.6%
24.7%
20.4%
13.8%
7.3%
5.3%
70.5%
53.6%
42.6%
35.0%
28.7%
19.7%
11.0%
10.2%
80 and over
75 to 79
70 to 74
65 to 69
55 to 64
45 to 54
24 to 44
15 to 24 With a disability
Severe disability
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation

6. Hospitalization Risk - Age
• The average American is
38.4 years old
• The average American with
disabilities is 51.9 years
old
• Based on age alone the
average person with
disabilities is about 3x
more likely to be
hospitalized due to
infection
6 | July 11, 2019
Rates of hospitalization strongly increases with age
Hospitalization Risk Multiplier Base 3x 4.9x 6.3x 6.9x
Source: Hospitalization Rates and Characteristics of Patients Hospitalized with Laboratory-
Confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 — COVID-NET, 14 States, March 1–30, 2020 (U.S. CDC),
Americans With Disabilities: 2014 (U.S. Census)

7. Hospitalization Risk - Pre-Existing Conditions
• Adults with disabilities are about 4 times more
likely to report their health to be fair or poor than
people with no disabilities
− CDC study - 40.3% vs 9.9%
− UN Study – 42% v 6%
• Flatten Inaccessibiltiy
− 43.7% of participants reported multiple disabilities
− “58.9% of those participants felt their underlying health
condition made them particularly vulnerable if exposed to
the COVID 19 virus.”
7 | July 11, 2019
People with disabilities report materially worse health than people without disabilities
Source: COVID-19 Outbreak and Persons with Disabilities”(United Nations), Flatten
Inaccessibility – Installment #1, COVID-19 – People Who Need Extra Precautions - People with
Disabilities (CDC), Disability and Health in the United States, 2001-2005 (CDC), 2017 Disability
Statistics Annual Report
“All people seem to be at higher risk of severe
illness from COVID-19 if they have
serious underlying chronic medical conditions like
chronic lung disease, a serious heart condition, or a
weakened immune system. Adults with disabilities
are three times more likely than adults without
disabilities to have heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
or cancer than adults without disabilities.”

8. Hospitalization Risk - Pre-Existing Conditions
8 | July 11, 2019
Pre-existing
condition
Hosp
Rate
Population
Rate
Rate in PwD Increased
Risk Rate
Hypertension 49.7% 45.0% 63.0%[1] 1.4x
Obesity 48.3% 26.4% 38.9% 1.5x
Chronic lung
disease
34.6% 6.4%[3] 13.7%[3] 2.1x
Diabetes mellitus 28.3% 9.4% 16.3% 1.7x
Cardiovascular
disease
27.8% 12.1% 10.7%[2] .9x
Population
Weighted[4]
1.49x
Source: Disability and Health Data System (CDC), 2017 Disability Statistics Annual Report, Facts
About Hypertension, Basics About COPD (CDC), National Diabetes Statistics Report (CDC)
[1] Reported as “Taking medicine for high blood pressure”
[2] Reported as “Ever had heart disease”
[3] Specific to Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
[4]Weighted by incidence rates for people with disabilities
• 89.3% of people hospitalized for
COVID-19 had one or more
underlying conditions
• Most commonly reported pre-
existing conditions
• Hypertension (49.7%)
• Obesity (48.3%)
• Chronic lung disease (34.6%)
• Diabetes mellitus (28.3%)
• Cardiovascular disease (27.8%)

9. Digital Accessibility = Safety
• Digital services often protect people from viral
exposure
• Inaccessibility of those digital services means people
with disabilities can’t use them
• If that forces people with disabilities to be exposed to
infection to use the same services that’s a morally
untenable situation
9 | July 11, 2019

10. Summary
• People with disabilities show massively increased risks for
hospitalization and death due to COVID-19
• The same care we apply to other, vulnerable populations must be
applied here
• Help us
− Raise awareness about this issue
− Fight for access to digital resources for people with disabilities now more
than ever before
10 | July 11, 2019

11. State of Digital
Accessibility Report
(2020)
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12. Report Background
Overview
• 2nd Annual Report, 38 pages
• 1120 Respondents (550 in 2019)
Purpose
• Hard data to benchmark & justify digital a11y
programs/investments.
• Understand where and how investments made
can have the biggest impact for users.
Major Themes
1. The State of Accessibility Programs
2. Challenges, Risks & Motivations
3. Product Development, Design & Testing
4. Content Creation
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13. Participant Insights
vs. Healthcare 2019
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14. Why do
organizations
implement
accessibility
programs?
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15. Top Five Drivers for Digital Accessibility
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16. Legal Concerns Are Dominant in the US
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17. What’s happening with lawsuits in the US?
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• ADA digital accessibility litigation
growth flat in 2019
• Still a small percentage of
overall ADA Title III lawsuits
• Number of new plaintiff
firms filing lawsuits steady
QoQ
• Bottom Line
• Short term expect the number of
cases to fall
• Long term expect the number of
lawsuits to rebound and start
growing again rapidly
2722
4436 4789
6601
7663
10136
11053
14323
18560
24051
15 19 57 262 814
2258 2256
1598
2877
5179
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
ADA Title III Lawsuit Breakout
ADA Title III Lawsuits Web Accessiblity Lawsuits
Filing Date →Q1 CY2019 Q2 CY2019 Q3 CY2019 Q4 CY2019 Q1 CY2020
Class Action ↑ Record Count Record Count Record Count Record Count Record Count
Single Plaintiff 355 342 180 133 146
Class Action 304 175 199 269 224
Class Action % 46.1% 33.8% 52.5% 66.9% 60.5%

18. Department of Education (DoED) OCR
• Challenge in getting data on this
− No DoED OCR reports in current administration
− Last DoEd report in fiscal 2016
− No data published for fiscal 2017, 2018 or 2019
• DoED OCR now provides searchable database of
resolution agreements and letters
− 5106 items available
• 1079 referenced website or eLearning accessibility
− Include callout for digital accessibility resolutions
− All resolutions posted materially down in the last
two years
− Digital accessibility resolutions massively down Bottom Line: We expect an uptick in enforcement by
DoED OCR over the next twelve months
18 | July 11, 2019
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
(EST)
2018
(EST)
2019
(July)
2020
(Feb)
DoED Compliants and Resolutions
Digital Accessibility Resolutions Accessibility + Effective Communication
All Disability Complaints

19. What are programs
focused on?
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20. Mature?
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• Most accessibility programs
are between 2-3 years old
• Overall we are a “new” space
• With a few mature programs

21. What makes for a mature program?
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Top Accessibility Goals for 2020
1. Implementing a standard,
organization-wide approach to
accessibility, 45%
2. Maturing an accessibility
program, 44%
3. Conforming to current or future
digital accessibility standards,
42%

22. What do we see in lawsuits?
• Web Accessibility Coordinator, Committee
• Monitor Compliance
− Annual Audit
• Development Training
• A Plan
• Policy
• User Testing
• CSR Process and Training
• Accessibility Section
• Accessibility Feedback and Support
• Qualified Web Accessibility Consultant
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23. What are the big challenges for 2020?
1 Incorporating accessibility
earlier in the development
lifecycle
56% Longer you wait= greater chance product will be inaccessible
(or expensive and time-consuming to retrofit).
Start early= iterate/test/learn w/ stronger product.
2 Training 55% Top 3 for every role surveyed.
3 Time 51% Developing accessible digital properties can be done on a
tight schedule, but only with the proper planning, training,
and tools.
4 Access to usability testers
who have disabilities
45% While 94% agree it's important, only 56% of organizations are
doing it. Budget Hinderance.
5 Too many content creators-
can’t monitor everything
44% Especially rang true for higher ed who have professors and
assistants uploading documents and videos for classes daily.
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24. On shifting accessibility left…
• Accessibility is moving upstream
• 90% of development teams think about
accessibility before building begins.
• Continuous Integration deployment is spotty, at
best
• 14% of development teams reported using
SDKs or automated testing integrations
• Doubled to 28% for those with advanced
accessibility knowledge.
• Other groups with high adoption
• Long-term contracts with an
accessibility vendor (23%)
• Organizations with 50k+ employees
(35%)
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25. Do we have people with disabilities test?
• 94% of organizations agree
that testing by people with
disabilities is important
• 56% of organizations are not
doing it
• The more established a
program is the more likely it
is to include testing by people
with disabilities
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Usability testing by people with disabilities, by
accessibility program age

26. What’s the right technical standard?
• WCAG 2.1 was released in
June of 2018.
• 2019 SODAR
− 28% of organizations said they
had adopted the 2.1
guidelines
• 2020 SODAR
− 56% of organizations said they
had adopted the 2.1
guidelines
• Bottom Line: It’s time to
take the 2.1 plunge
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27. What does that
mean for video?
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28. Video captioning is widely adopted
For general video
• 90% of respondents caption their video content
• 30% of them outsource captions
For live events
• “We provide live closed-captioning” - 29.4%
• “We provide a transcript following the webinar” - 29.4%
Bottom Line
• Online video captions are the default these days
• Caption quality is the next focus
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29. Connect with us.
@LevelAccessA11y
linkedin.com/company/level-access
facebook.com/LevelAccessA11y/
1.800.889.9659 | info@levelaccess.com | www.levelaccess.com
Digital Accessibility: It’s All We Do
Thank You!
Level Access
Timothy Springer
Chief Executive Officer
Level Access

30. Appendix
Supporting Data
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