- "Welcome to the State of Accessibility" podcast from TPGi on LinkedIn Live. I am Mark Miller, and this is my co-host, Dr. David Sloan, Chief Accessibility Officer for TPGi, co-author of "What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility," a user research specialist, and the keeper of specialist knowledge of inclusive user experience design applied to educational technology. - And Mark is the Sales Director for TPGi and a member of the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative, Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group, Accessibility and Maturity Model Task Force. - Well, great to be on another live podcast with you, David. We've got several exciting things here at this last, this is our last broadcast of 2024. So real quick, the things that we're gonna cover today are legislation and regulation in 2024. We're also gonna talk a little bit about AI and Accessibility, which I think was a huge topic that kind of evolved throughout this year. And then WCAG, WCAG 3. I'm excited to hear about that. And we're gonna just give Dave and I's personal highlights for 2024. And did you bring your crystal ball, David? I have mine. We're gonna predict- - Yeah, I'm not sure it's working too well, but we'll see. - It's probably not. But we're gonna give our predictions for what's gonna be important in 2025. So with that, David, there was quite a bit that happened in 2024 from a legislation and regulation standpoint. You want to dig in and start to talk about what we saw this year? - Yeah, and I'm gonna be upfront and say that I have just dropped off Lainey Feingold's annuals review of the state of accessibility law in the US. She did a webinar for 3play Media, which is only just finished. And I managed to listen to most of it before coming over to this one. So I learned some helpful tidbits there to add to what we've been observing over the last year. And I know that, might be a bit kind of, do we need to start by looking at legislation and regulations? But I think there has been some helpful developments this year. And in the US for me, the big story is this kind of harmonization around WCAG 2.1 Level AA as a baseline for web and mobile apps that are covered under the relevant rules and laws that we're gonna talk about. So for me, that kind of harmonization is, you know, here's a shared standard rather than this agency or this law has one standard. And over there it's a different one that there is some kind of consistency between different rules that go along with different legislation. And also different, you know, similarity in the exceptions. So it just makes it easier if you're building technologies that are used by state and local government agencies or are used in healthcare. You're gonna be asked to be doing the same things for those different sectors. And that's really helpful. - Yeah, I think just in the years I've been in accessibility, there's been a lot of confusion around that. So I was happy to see that. And harmonization is a great word for it. Harmonization to 2.1 Level AA across the board. Talk to me a little bit, like there was also some, there was also some rules for web content and mobile apps within ADA Title II. - Yeah, so this was the first time that the ADA has had an associated rule that directly references requirements for websites, web content and mobile apps. And it's limited to Title II. So that's state and local government agencies and programs funded by state and local government agencies. But it's still a significant proportion of digital content that people with disabilities would expect to be able to interact with as citizens without encountering difficulties. So I think it is a landmark, and it helps to clarify things that the Department of Justice has been saying for years and years and years that the ADA does apply to digital content. And the rules now in place, and yeah, it's not perfect. There are some concerns about the exceptions and about the fact that the requirements are on the state and local government agencies rather than the suppliers to them. So all of the responsibilities on the people who might be acquiring web content or mobile apps from third parties. But then if we look at it maybe as an influence in procurement, if you're supplying web content or mobile applications to a state or local government agency or anything funded by state or local government funds, then it would be in your business's interests to reassure your customers that your solutions meet the ADA Title II requirements. So hopefully it will have a positive influence. You know, the rule came into, you know, it was published in earlier this year in April, and there are deadlines in 2026 and 2027, depending on how big the state or local government agency is. So it's early yet to know just what kind of influence it has. But the fact that it's there is a big landmark. - Just to break this down simply, and correct me if I'm wrong here, David, but really what's exciting is, is that back in 1990 when the ADA was put into place, this contemplation of digital accessibility in the web and stuff wasn't there because it really wasn't, you know, wasn't in government agencies, wasn't in the school system. It wasn't accommodating the public, it wasn't doing this. So there's been a lot of interpretation around whether or not digital accessibility falls under these different titles of the ADA. So the rule we're talking about, just to state it as simply as possible, is saying, mm, yep, it applies. We're giving you a rule now that says that everything we're talking about in the ADA also needs to be considered for digital accessibility. And then they've tied some dates and stuff around it to give, in this Title II is related to government. And they put some dates around it so that it's not like you gotta worry about it right this second, you know, we just clarified it, so here's a little bit of time to put it together. But for those people who haven't been following this for years like you and I have, is that a fair way to kind of just break it out to understand really what happened there at that moment in time? - Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. And like you say, there's scope for organizations to plan for what they need to do and time for them to bring their resources into conformance. So yes, the ADA Title II definitely applies to web content and mobile applications, and here's a rule that tells you what you need to do, what standards you need to meet and when you need to meet them by. - Clarity around that. - So we've got clarity and more detail on the requirements rather than a generic, yes, it applies, but you're not quite sure, well, how do we know that we're conforming? - What does that mean? Yeah, perfect. Okay, so now the other thing is, I know that, again, for the long time I've been in Accessibility, one of the verticals of the industries that really has been concerned with it for a long time, for a lot of good reasons, right, is healthcare. I think that that's just, you know, it's an area where all of the public is involved in it and then particularly needs to service people who have disabilities because there's a good chance that people with disabilities are participating in your digital healthcare, you know, fill in the blank. So there was a couple of acts that came around this year related to healthcare. Can you talk about those? - Yeah, so the Health and Human Services published a rule on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. And that provided some, again, some specific clarity on digital accessibility for any resource funded by HHS that's used to provide healthcare programs. And as I said before, it's requiring the same, effectively the same requirements as the ADA Title II role. So that was helpful. What I've learned since then is that there is a court challenge to that role that was filed in Texas, and I think in Lainey's webinar that I just mentioned, something like 17 states of signed up to that. So there is some uncertainty over the future of that rule and of Section 504 in total. So that's a, you know, that's something that we need to be monitoring and see what, you know, what happens with that lawsuit and whether it moves forward or is thrown out. But in essence, yes, it's providing more clarity on healthcare programs and services provided through digital means, you know, everything from websites, apps to kiosks, and again, providing similar guidance on what you need to do. So I think that's definitely positive. And the other one that was of interest was Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, where Section 1557 sort of addresses non-discrimination on a number of factors including disability, but it did provide some guidance on, again, digital means to access healthcare programs and services. And it kind of referenced the Section 504 rule. So everything's kind of connecting with each other. So again, rather than having parallel rules that kind of don't quite align with each other or contradict each other, in this case, the Section 1557 rule reference the Section 504 requirements. So again, you know, you get this alignment and you reduce the sense of confusion that might exist. - Perfect. And then, so while we're on the topic of updates of regulations in the US, we had a big event, I don't know if you're aware, David, a big event occur this year in the US and that was the election of a new president. So what are your thoughts on how that might impact Accessibility? - Yeah, I mean, I guess as a resident living in the US but somebody who's wasn't entitled to vote in the legislation, or sorry, in the election, I kind of observed it rather than was a direct participant. But clearly there will be changes, you know, based on the actions of the administration when it was previously in power and the promises or pledges made during the election campaign. But, you know, while there might be uncertainty over certain aspects of this enforcing legislation relevant to digital accessibility, again, thinking back to Lainey's webinar I just finished, I think there's an acknowledgement of uncertainty, but also a recognition that a lot of the framework, the legal framework, protecting the rights of people with disabilities is very well established and embedded. And there's a strong aspect of a bipartisan acceptance that it needs to exist. So a lot of the things that we've been talking about, like the ADA Title II rule is in place, it exists, and to withdraw it would take a lot of effort and may not be a priority compared to other things that the incoming administration have promised to address or to change. So I think that, yeah, I mean, again, we're probably moving a bit to predicting the future here, but it seems like there may well be a reduction in enforcement of existing laws, or maybe changes that might make it harder for somebody to file suits related to ADA or breaches of the ADA. But at the same time, there are ongoing private lawsuits, you know, we know about private lawsuits that either, you know, they can challenge the law or they can claim that somebody's breaking the law so that's likely to continue. And, you know, I think it's probably early to decide exactly or with a high degree of confidence what's gonna happen. But I think there's lots already in place and probably digital accessibility is maybe less of a priority or less of a target for the incoming administration compared to other things. So maybe about- - So from the standpoint of a business or something like that, it doesn't look like a reason to take your foot off the gas, so to speak. But it is just to keep an eye on, and some of the nuances within it may shift or not progress as quickly as we thought or something along those lines. And what those things exactly are, only time will tell. But keep your focus on it. Don't let it go. - Exactly, and regardless of the administration that's in the White House, the benefits of providing accessible digital resources remain. - Yeah. - So, you know, keep on doing it. All of those benefits remain, even if the laws may be less stringently applied or new laws may not come into play that we might have thought they would. - So in my mind, one of the most interesting sort of, I'll call it a focus for 2024 really was international. It wasn't necessarily the US. And this may be a little bit closer to you, David, I'm sure the audience guessing by your accent and the fact that you were an observer in the US election, you're a little closer to the Europe and the EU. The EAA, the European Accessibility Act, really, it was already there before 2024, right? But it's got a lot of attention. And that is, and we'll probably talk about that more, but that's largely because of some deadlines and stuff in 2025 that we need to be thinking about. So how do you see the European Accessibility Act and how it evolved and how the world started to look at it and react to it in 2024? - Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, we kind of looking at it in the filter bubble of the Accessibility industry or Accessibility advocacy movement, it seems like it's almost, that's all we've been talking about this year. - I mean, that's what I feel like. 100%. - Given the number of webinars and articles, if the number of webinars and articles and other outreach efforts that the Accessibility movement has provided, if that's anything to judge by, then we'll have no problem. You know, come June 28th next year, everyone will know exactly what they needed to do and will have done it. We know that's not gonna be the case. - Even if we were talking about it, we were talking about it, it was just- - Yeah, exactly. - You couldn't talk about Accessibility without it at least being a footnote. So I completely agree with that. So is that, I mean, that was sort of predictive, David, is that what you're feeling? Is that so much discussion, so much, again, from our lens, that you're really seeing that the business world in Europe is gonna be ready for this? - Well, you say the business world in Europe, it's the business world that does business in Europe- - Does business in Europe. - I think that's one of the- - Interpretation, yeah. - And it's one of the important parts, the European Accessibility Act that it's intended support business in the European Union. So whether, you know, you might be based in the US or Canada or wherever, but if you trade in the European Union, then you need to pay attention and you need to understand your obligations. So, so yeah, I mean, I think you just over six months to the first deadline in June next year, and I guess like a lot of things, you know, whether it's doing that assignment at school or whatever, a lot of us wait 'till the last moment or wait till the last minute- - No idea what you're talking about. - That's how I work. No, I didn't say that. - You just described my entire scholastic career. - Deadlines- - the last one. - Yeah. What was it? Douglas Adams said, "I love the sound of the whooshing noise deadlines make as they go past." But with the EAA, so much of it's about planning and implementing a program that brings your covered products and services into conformance and ensures that they maintain conformance over time. So it's not, you know, we all say that Accessibility isn't a one and done thing. That EAA really makes that clear by saying you've got to have a program, a strategy in place to maintain conformance and have the evidence ready to present to a monitoring agency to show that your product or service remains conformant. And as soon as something changes, whether it's the functionality or the changes in standards, that you're ready to adapt your product or service to maintain its conformance. And if it doesn't and you receive a complaint or find out, you need to tell, you need to be proactive in telling monitoring agencies that that's the case and that you're taking action. So all of that requires an organization to really think carefully about how they do that and to put plan or that strategy into place and maintain it over time. You know, so I think that's exciting and that it really drives- - It is. - Organizations to improve their Accessibility maturity, which I know is something you care a lot about as do I. - Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's, in terms of sort of mitigating and handling Accessibility as it relates to legislation, there's been for years kind of a focus on, are you, let's look at the guidelines or we conform it to the guidelines. Can somebody use this product? And I 100% agree, the exciting thing about the EAA in my mind is it says, how capable is your organization of maintaining outputting digital products? Let's look at it from that perspective and not just then. So it's really, really pretty cool. So in the EAA points to EN 301 549 in terms of the, an example, and maybe I'm not quite saying this perfectly, but the example of what you can look at to understand what it is to be, it's hard to put it together, 'cause it's not- - It really is, yeah. - [Mark] What it is to be accessible, right? - You're right, it's hard to put into words that EAA gives you freedom, a fair degree of flexibility as a product or service, a product manufacturer or service provider to understand how you meet the Accessibility requirements. Yes, there are at least, here are some requirements you need to meet, but it gives you some flexibility into how you meet them. But it does talk about presumption of conformance. And if you can demonstrate that you meet the requirements of an existing harmonized European standard, then that's a great way to show that you're meeting EAA's requirements. And EN 301 549 is an example of a harmonized EU standard. So if you meet EN 301 549, then it's a way to show that you meet EAA's requirements. It's still kind of convoluted that- - And going back to what we're talking about in the US and the harmonization of WCAG, right, the WCAG 2.1, things harmonizing around that, EN 301 549 really ultimately within that points to those guidelines as well. - Yes, yes it does. So it references. - So it's not, yeah, anybody listening to this, it's not like there's a ton of things flying around. It's a little funky to piece it all together. But if you're focused on the WCAG guidelines right now, the good news is you're not, you know, there's nothing super, super deviant from that. Maybe a few extra things to pay attention to, but for the bulk of what you're doing, it still is that. - Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we talked about harmonization a lot in this part of the podcast. And one of the great things about EN 301 549 is it's, you know, in addition to it adopting WCAG 2.1 by reference, it also harmonizes very closely with the Section 508 standards. So it's covering hardware, software, documents, and other digital resources beyond web. EN 301 549 has also been adopted by other countries. So it was adopted in Australia quite a while ago. It was adopted as an official standard by Canada this year. And amongst other areas, I know that, you know, I heard earlier this year there was a plan in place to adopt it as a digital accessibility across Africa, so. - Wow. - Rather than- - EN 301 549, you're talking about? - Yes, so. - [Mark] Wow! Nice. - Well, EN 301 549 is also undergoing revision and we'll probably see a new version maybe early 2026. But I would expect that the revision process will be harmonized with the updates in the other countries that have adopted it. So yeah, we have a standard that started off as a European standard, but is being adopted elsewhere and has been closely aligned with the standard that federal governments or federal agencies in the US have to follow. So again, the stories of harmonization, which I think is very helpful. - This is a little like that neighborhood cat that roams around and every family has given the neighborhood cat a different name, but it's really the same cat, right? That's how I view this, you know? That's good because it refers back to the same thing like the harmonization exists. - Yeah, I'm just thinking of a neighborhood cat called EN 301 549, I think. - We've got- - It's a bit of a mouthful for a cat. - We've got several of 'em, and I'm gonna name one that now, David. People will look at me a little funny, but you and I will know why. - Yep. - All right, so let's go into the other, you know, the other topic that we sort of teased at the top of this was, and this was a big, I mean, just a big topic globally, no matter what, right, with everything. And of course it came in and touched Accessibility, and that's AI, right? We had PatGPT come out. When did that, did that come out in 2024 or was that 2023, and we were just... I don't remember, but it was- - Let me Wikipedia that. I think it was certainly before 2024. - I think it was before, but this year, I mean, you can't open up a browser or launch an app without there being an AI component jumping out and saying, try this. I mean, my chat feature on my phone now has AI, so I can just talk to AI and ask a question. So this showed up everywhere this year in Accessibility, no exception whatsoever. And there's a lot of considerations when it comes to Accessibility. And there's a couple of different angles, right? There's how can this benefit us in terms of achieving Accessibility, you know, how does it affect Accessibility tools and the way that we currently look at Accessibility and make things accessible, it's one angle. And then there is what are sort of the dangers of AI and how can that negatively impact, having this all over the place, Accessibility and the things. So I'm gonna stop there. Can you dig in and tell us what you saw out of AI in 2024 related- - Yeah, and I mean, I guess we could devote a whole podcast to specific examples and exploring opportunities. So I'll probably rather than dig deep, I'll- - Yeah, for sure. - I'll just scrape the surface. But yeah, I mean, I think that there's a lot of opportunity and prototyping of AI-powered innovation that could positively impact Accessibility efforts. You know, I think from our perspective, working in the Vispero organization, we see two sides of the coin in terms of AI to enhance the behavior of assistive technology. So things like JAWS Picture Smart, a way to use AI to provide more detailed image descriptions, and do so immediately and on the fly, which can really help the non-visual user experience. There are ways where AI can support people in writing and communicating, maybe correct spelling errors or provide, you know, provide a way to get your thoughts down into words where, you know, because of a disability, you might find it difficult to do that otherwise. So AI is a way to enhance assistive technology is one obvious and direct way that we can harness AI to support people with disabilities. And then on the other side- - Real quick story before we move on, David. I have dyslexia, and one of the ways that I've used just your general AI bots, whatever, you know, ChatGPT, Gemini, you know, any of those, Copilot, is I'll ask it to summarize articles for me, and then I will read the summary of the article. And sometimes that's sufficient. But if I go on to read the whole article just with that dyslexia, it gives me a framework in my brain to kind of more quickly absorb the information. So I found it very helpful in that way, just to your point about some of those things that you were saying. - And, you know, this is great as a way to empower people who have Accessibility needs to provide more powerful, more capable assistive technology. And then on the other side of the coin is the use of AI to help create digital content, help build, code digital applications, help people test for Accessibility. I know there's a lot of research going on to using AI to improve testing digital resources and identifying more potential Accessibility issues through automated means than we could do before. And I feel like that's only going to increase the tools that help create digital content. Maybe we've still got a lot of work to go in terms of them automatically creating accessible code rather than code with Accessibility barriers present. Tools that advise, you know, provide advice on accessible coding practices. There's definitely a lot of work to do for those tools, the AI tools to provide reliable advice. You know, if they're trained on a generic corpus of instructional content on web development, the chances are they're gonna be trained on content that does not promote Accessibility best practices amongst the more reliable resources, so. So there's a challenge there. But, you know, hopefully over time we'll focus more on, or the proportion of quality information increases. But there's always the risk that as AI tools regurgitate content that's not reliable, then people will follow that and write more about it. So the proportion of unreliable content grows. So that's definitely a risk to, you know, to stay concerned about. - Anything else from an AI standpoint? I wanna make sure- - Yeah. - 30 minutes into this. I wanna make sure that we, we do the highlights and predictions here. - I think the one thing I would say is like, what I do see is there are a lot of organizations that are coming together with a fairly, here's that word again, harmonized, message warning of the concerns of risks of harm of AI to disabled people. You know, that the U.S. Access Board was due to give a webinar this week on the research findings of a project that they relied on risks and benefit of AI for people with disabilities. That's now gonna be in January instead. So anyone who's listening, who is interested in learning more about that, look out for the U.S. Access Board's webinar. I also just read an opinion piece in the latest communications of the ACM, the world's biggest professional organization of technologists. And that opinion piece, AI must be anti-ableist and accessible, and kind of summarize the key concerns. So there's knowledgeable researchers educating the computing profession on the concerns of AI and providing recommendations and how to use it in an ethical and thoughtful way. And all of that stuff is important that people get that message out and others read and respond to that message. - I think it's a good dialogue. I think that this is one of those cautiously optimistic , right? Like AI and I'm, you know, and this is how I feel about it, right? It seems like a bit of magic, like it's a really quite cool, and it's amazing what it does, but approaching it with caution. And I think from both sides of it, right? Just in terms of what it might do out there in the world with creating content and, you know, being, it really is depends its dataset, right? So if it's got a dataset that's biased in a certain way, then its output is gonna be biased in that same way. But even within AI tools, like we've already run into some challenges in the past with past versions of AI around tools and whether they can really do everything that they're supposed to be able to do. And I think, you know, just because this stuff looks so cool, for lack of a better saying, it doesn't mean that we should just assume it's gonna come in and solve all of that, that we still need to keep an appropriate critical eye on it and watch it evolve. You know, like 2025 probably, not to get into predictions too early, is probably not gonna be the year that we see this work perfectly, but that year, and perfect being a relative term here, but that year where it starts to match some of the other ways, you know, maybe in the future, but we doesn't wanna make sure we're not diving in and being too optimistic about it too early and doing harm in any way. So I think those are really important dialogue and one that we need to continue. All right, so ready for personal highlights? - Yeah, so for me, I think probably my personal highlight, you know, from a sort professional perspective working in Accessibility was the chance to visit the United Nations headquarters in New York City back in June. I had the privilege of attending the, that's just another mouthful, the 17th Annual Convention of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So the UN CRPD is a kind of foundational articulation of disability rights, and digital accessibility is part of disability rights. And for me, the UN has always been a, you know, it's important, but I don't quite know why. And to attend this event and learn more about global efforts to reduce disability exclusion and how digital Accessibility connects to that, and how disability inclusion connects to sustainable development goals. You know, the UN has a big focus on sustainable development, you know, recognizing climate change and other challenges, and digital accessibility is a big part of that, something we'll come back to before the end of the talk. But for me, that was a huge highlight. And I'm really grateful to G3ict and Axel Leblois and his team for inviting me along, giving me the chance to take part. So very grateful for that. And if anyone has the opportunity to attend in the future, please do. It's quite an experience - That's incredible. So I'll give you my highlight. Mine's a little, not quite as important as yours, but the first, well, I shouldn't say important, it's important, but it's not as sophisticated, I guess. But the two of them that really, when I think back to 2024 and how it was different for me, right? First of all, every year we go to an event called CSUN. It's the world's largest assistive technology conference. And it has been for years and years and years, out in Anaheim, California. And often in attendance to that is Stevie Wonder. He'll come by and check out things. And he actually spoke a little bit. And I just think hearing that from the perspective of a celebrity, somebody who has navigated an incredible career in music as a person who's blind, I was just like, I don't know, it just made me feel good about what we do. It made me feel good that it's a reaching, you know, and he was able to maybe give that perspective to the world of how positive the impact of this work is on a lot of people. So that was just a, that moment just felt personally very good to me. It was kind of one of those times when you are in the moment and you go, wait a minute, you know, these crazy work days I have and all this stuff, this is why we do it. And then the other thing that I thought was, this year to me was the year of the enclosed system. And what I mean by that is that things like kiosks, payment systems, anywhere where out in the public we have, you have a dedicated hardware software device that the public is using for some benefit, right? Maybe you're buying something at a store in an airport or ordering fast food. This was the year where I could walk around and travel with my wife and say, "Look at this," and not in as many cases as I would like. We have a lot of work to do. But a lot of these things have a product called JAWS for Kiosk on it. They're outfitted with Storm devices. And I could walk up and show my wife and other friends and families like this is the kind of impact that we're having. And we could plug a, you know, headphones into it. It could be navigated through this tactile Storm device, all these different ways that people with disabilities can access it. And I hope for 2025 that the number of those, those would be moments, right? Oh, I found one, right? I hope 2025, you can turn around in any time you see something like this. It's that accessible. So those were the real two standout things I think for me in 2024. - Man, that's terrific. And especially the, you know, just the increased awareness of accessible kiosks as being just part of built environment. - It's frontier. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, we thought about it on the web now what about when you're walking around the- - Yeah. And the more organizations are kind of do it yourself and we'll redeploy our staff elsewhere. I mean, as long as that's a step forward for an organization. More kiosks do provide more independence and yeah, it's definitely an opportunity. So Mark, you told me about highlights. Tell me about predictions for next year. - What about the magic eight ball? Like you said, my crystal ball is on the blank, so I'm gonna use my old school magic eight ball that I got when I was eight years old. So yeah, my predictions for 2025 are really not surprising. I think that this is gonna be an interesting year for AI, and I think it's gonna be a little bit tumultuous, right? Like, I think that we're going to, the conversation that we just had, I think we're gonna see AI implemented more and more and more in all these different ways. And we as human beings think we're really good at predicting, and we're all saying, be careful, be careful, be careful. But I think that there's gonna be new challenges, new things solved, you know, both sides of that AI coin, we're really gonna see. And I think that 2025, we'll look at 2024 as the year that it was sort of introduced. 2025, I think we'll look at as a year where it was really refined where we made our mistakes, where we tripped over things, where we discovered things that work really well that we didn't even think of. And really started that journey of, you know, refining it and correcting those things. I think that we'll see that. And then I think that I would have a similar prediction around the EAA because of these deadlines, the June deadline that you talked about. And because all of this talk that we did in 2024 is actually going to turn into something in 2025. And that is, yay, and that is requirements. And that is these, like, it's very interesting to me, for the first time there's going to be governing bodies, bodies that are responsible for saying, are the organizations doing this, that come in, and who knows what they're gonna look like? But I think we're gonna see that really cool stuff come out of that. And I also think we're gonna learn some things from that. We're gonna see where that kind of thing falls apart. We're gonna see how that's done well and how that's not done so well. And I think that will start, that'll be kinda like AI was this year, that will start that journey towards exploring, how do we put something like this in place? How do we be reasonable to businesses and give them a true opportunity to do this, and do this the right way without undue burden? And how do we govern that, and how do we govern that in a positive way and so that it really makes impact? So those are my two. I think we're gonna be witnesses to those two phenomenons in 2025. - I will write them down and we'll check back in tell- - , yep, and see if I'm right. - Yeah, so- - How about you, David? - So to add to that, man, I think one thing I predict we'll see more of in 2025 is a richer understanding of the lived experience of disability and how that impacts on Accessibility efforts. You know, I know with people moving away from Twitter. Twitter was a huge connected community of people with disabilities who could talk and share experiences, and, you know, finding new ways to share those information, those experiences in a really positive way to help others working in digital accessibility understand why it's important and what to do to be successful. And I think part of that will be, you know, I see like an increase in the importance of Accessibility for people with chronic illness. We kind of have a sort of very established understanding of the disability groups that benefit from Accessibility, but I don't often see chronic illness included in those conversations where Accessibility needs may vary within a day, over time. They may vary in terms of how they manifest themselves, but when you think about the ongoing concern of long COVID and other long-term illnesses, I think we have an obligation as an Accessibility movement to recognize the opportunity that digital Accessibility brings to people with chronic illness. So I think that's something that we'll see more of next year. Also, continuing focus and cognitive Accessibility in its many diverse forms, I think, you know, that's a hope as much as a prediction that we continue to focus there. And the other one I would share briefly is that, and I mentioned it with the UN trip that I did earlier this year, more alignment of Accessibility and sustainable web efforts. So just earlier this week or end of last week, the W3C released a early draft of the Web Sustainability Guidelines, again, looking at how can we make sure that technology is not consuming valuable resources, energy resources, financial resources, and the alignment of Accessibility best practices with those broader sustainability goals. So seeing Accessibility as part of a way to create a sustainable web that everyone can use regardless of where you are in the world, I think we're gonna see more of that next year. - Well, I have written all those down, tri-folded them, stuffed 'em in the envelope, sealed it up. Open January 1st, 2026, we'll see if your predictions are right, Dave. - Yeah, my one other prediction, there's still gonna be lots of Accessibility work to be done next year and AI is not gonna fix it, so. - I'm not even gonna put that one in the envelope. - Yes. - [Mark] That one's a given, right? - [David] Yeah, yeah. - All right, well- - So, yeah- - Yeah, go ahead. I think we've done it. - I think we have. Well, we've again scratched the surface. But I just wanted to, you know, this is December end of 2024, I wanted to thank, well, first of all, thank you for being a great partner in this series of podcasts. But to everyone who's listened live or to recordings of our podcast, you know, this is our fourth one since we started back in September. I've enjoyed myself, and I hope that our listeners have enjoyed our talks too. And we'd love to hear feedback. We'd love to hear suggestions for topics to discuss in future podcasts. Our next one is scheduled for January 16th, 3:00 PM Eastern Time. So I think we're gonna talk about EAA. We'll decide that near the time. But before then, I just wanted to say happy holidays to everyone who celebrates, and best wishes for the new year. - Great. Happy holidays. We really do appreciate everybody listening. And my final prediction for 2025 is that our listenership is going to go up and up and up, David. I love doing this podcast with you. I appreciate you as a partner in general. The listeners may or may not know that, but David and I work together more than just on this podcast. And we really, I really appreciate the partnership, the things I learned from you and all the wonderful things that we accomplished together, David. Happy holidays, happy New Year to everyone. Now you know the state of Accessibility. I am Mark Miller, thanking David Sloan and reminding you that the state of Accessibility is always changing, so please help us affect change.