Accessibility Espresso 1
1,001 experts sign the Overlay Fact Sheet, Eric Bailey predicts EAA compliance theater, and how AI changes the way we write alt text.
Topic of the week
Eric Bailey's Predictions for the Future of Accessibility
Eric Bailey, Senior Designer for Accessibility & Design Systems at Github, predicts that the European Accessibility Act will trigger the same pattern as GDPR: a wave of third-party vendors selling performative compliance rather than genuine solutions. He points to accessibility overlay companies already facing FTC action and class-action lawsuits (e.g., UserWay) as evidence. Bailey argues that most access barriers originate in the design layer, not in code - and that LLMs trained on the largely inaccessible web will perpetuate these problems. His central warning: the gap between contractually-guaranteed accessibility and actually usable experiences will keep widening.