Accessibility Week

It's the Week of Accessibility.

In this article we speak with Wouter Bolier of Every(in) who is organizing the Week of Accessibility for the ^5th year as project leader. "Only the fifth year," as it is the ^24th week organized by Every(in). Every(in) is the umbrella organization of people with a physical disability, intellectual disability or chronic illness. Every(in) advocates for a society in which everyone can participate and no one is excluded.

From October 2 to 7, 2023, we want to show that accessibility benefits many more people: accessibility pays off. 1 in 5 Dutch people have a disability. It goes without saying that they are happy with good, physical, digital and social accessibility. After all, this allows them to participate fully in society.

Accessibility Week is a week to draw attention to accessibility. Accessibility for people with disabilities or chronic illnesses. Over 200 activities are organized during this week. These are small activities, such as online meetings. But also large activities, such as a congress. The goal of Accessibility Week is to create awareness among people, but also among companies.

Accessibility pays off

This year's theme is "accessibility pays off. Accessibility benefits more people. An accessible festival attracts more visitors. An accessible store has a larger customer base. An accessible website reaches more people. This will be highlighted in Accessibility Week 2023.

This theme was chosen because of the European Accessibility Act. It was adopted by the European Union on June 7, 2019, and will go into effect in 2025. This legislation aims to create overarching accessibility guidelines for all member states. Member states had 2 years after enactment to translate the directive into local legislation. Then there is another 4 years to implement that legislation. That means that by June 2025 at the latest, these rules will apply throughout the European Union.

It has not yet been implemented in the Netherlands. Work is currently underway to transpose the Accessibility Act into Dutch laws and regulations. In line with this, The standard committee Accessibility of Buildings has drawn up the NEN9210. This standard should provide clear and practical information to all parties involved in construction on how to design an accessible building. The standard committee on the accessibility of buildings has compared all existing guidelines, taking the European standard on accessibility as a starting point. Based on this, a common standard has been drawn up. They intend to publish this standard definitively in the spring of 2024.  

HogeNood

HogeNood also thinks accessibility is important and is working on digital and physical accessibility and aligns with our mission accessible restrooms at all times for everyone.

For physical accessibility, we work on wheelchair accessibility of the toilet. The requirements are based on the Accessibility Handbook and the new NEN9210. This list of requirements was created in consultation with interest groups and we are currently further researching and finalizing it. If you know or are someone who is in a wheelchair, it would help enormously if you also fill out the questionnaire. This list will remain active during the month of October and will take 15min of your time.

For digital accessibility we worked hard last year to make the app meet all WCAG requirements so it can be used by everyone. Here you can think for example about the text size and text color, that it is not too light and that there is enough contrast. But also the use of aids such as keyboard operation. Whether we were actually fully accessible we had it tested by an independent party that performs accreditations: Cardan Technobility. Cardan Technobility specializes in digital accessibility, helping companies and governments make their websites, apps and other online services accessible. We currently meet the 42/43 requirements. The full report can be found on our website at the accessibility statement.