by Lindsay Nash | May 27, 2025 | Articles
Imagine you were locked out of a software—not because you forgot the password, but because the product wasn’t designed with you in mind.
Unfortunately, this is all too common for people with disabilities across the globe. In response, the European Union will enact new legislation on June 28, 2025, aimed at harmonising accessibility standards across the EU.
While accessibility standards and guidelines have long been present across the web, it is now more important than ever that your organisation, business and software are ready for the new legislation. Accessibility is no longer optional; for those who do business in the EU, it will be required. Are you ready?
In this blog, we’ll go over why accessibility matters, what it means, how you can comply with the upcoming European Accessibility Act and how Award Force has prepared for compliance.
Join Product Manager and “accessibility champion” Rachel Martin of Creative Force (the team behind Award Force) as she chats with Lindsay Nash about accessibility and the upcoming European Accessibility Act.
The European Accessibility Act is not new; in fact, it was accepted in 2019, but comes into effect in June 2025. The main goal of the new legislation is to improve the market for accessible products and services by removing barriers created by divergent rules, harmonising exact accessibility standards across the EU.
“Accessibility, in general, is about making the software available to someone who has disabilities so they can still do everything that a person without that disability can do,” said Rachel Martin, the Product Manager and accessibility champion at Award Force.
“The European Accessibility Act is about harmonising all the laws and guidelines across the 27 member states of the EU. They want to make sure the needs of people with disabilities are met, and are not discriminated against. Currently, there are disparities between laws which create barriers to trade. So, the primary focus is about consistency and reducing those barriers to trade.”
Under the EAA, businesses will benefit from:
Persons with disabilities and elderly people will benefit from:
The most impacted sector will be software providers, especially consumer-facing interfaces. The legislation will also impact websites, mobile apps, e-commerce, banking, transport and more.
While the EAA doesn’t prescribe specific technologies or methods, the law does define what users must be able to do, and relies upon principles found in WCAG 2.1 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), EN 301 549, and ISO accessibility standards (see below for details).
The EAA requires:
Any business offering digital services or products in the EU market and member states must comply with the EAA. (The EAA does not apply in the UK, where the Equality Act applies instead).
But, companies with headquarters outside the EU must also comply with the EAA if they sell relevant products or services to customers inside the EU.
The EAA covers products and services that the European Commission has identified as being important for persons with disabilities, and includes:
When it comes to software accessibility, it’s essential to distinguish between laws, which are legally binding, and guidelines, which serve as recommendations or standards. Both play vital roles in making digital products inclusive—but they function differently.
And all of it, from WCAG and EAA to Section 508, can come across as a confusing alphabet soup!
But the important thing to remember: the laws tell us what we must do, while the guidelines tell us how to do it.
Here’s a breakdown of major accessibility laws vs. guidelines across key regions:
These are regulations or acts enforced by governments. Non-compliance can lead to fines, lawsuits or denied market access.
Applies from: June 28, 2025 (compliance deadline) Covers: Digital products/services including websites, mobile apps, e-commerce, banking, e-books, ticketing, etc. Goal: Create and enforce accessibility regulations across EU market Enforcement: National authorities can impose fines or restrict product access
Applies to public accommodations, including websites and software Enforcement: Civil lawsuits, Department of Justice actions Covers: Not specific to digital, but courts have interpreted it to cover websites and apps
Applies to: U.S. federal agencies and their contractors Requires: Information and communications technology (ICT) must be accessible to people with disabilities Based on: WCAG 2.0 Level AA (as of the latest refresh)
ACA: Applies to federal institutions in Canada AODA (Ontario): Private/public sector must meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA for web content Deadlines: AODA has phased deadlines for compliance
Replaced the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) Requires: Reasonable accommodations in digital services Covers: Not specific on technical standards but often interpreted through WCAG
These accessibility guidelines include standards and best practices, and often form the basis for the above laws as industry standards for compliance.
Created by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), they are the most widely accepted international standard. Current version: WCAG 2.2 (released October 2023) Levels: A (basic), AA (intermediate, most laws require), AAA (highest) Covers: Perceivable, operable, understandable, robust (POUR) principles
A EU-based technical standard providing detailed accessibility requirements; a tool to help comply with laws like the Web Accessibility Directive and the EAA. It outlines accessibility requirements for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products and services to ensure they can be used by persons with disabilities.
Ensures tools used to create content (e.g. CMS, site builders) are accessible and encourages accessible output and accessible interfaces for content creators.
For browsers and media players to support accessibility (less widely adopted).
Moving beyond laws and guidelines, why does accessibility matter in the first place? Of course, inclusion should always be a top priority. But beyond this, there are even more good reasons to prioritise it in your organisation.
Good business: At least 15% of the world’s population have a recognised disability and they have an estimated annual disposable income of $6.9 trillion. That means it is simply good business to be inclusive of these individuals.
Good product design: Accessibility is closely linked to usability because accessibility improvements benefit everyone. How?
Closed captions are useful whether it be a way to access content in different languages, or when you’re in a noisy environment with lots of background noise or when accents are difficult to understand.
Meeting minimum colour contrast requirements benefits not just the visually impaired but also anyone looking at their device in places where there’s lots of glare—such as when you’re sitting outdoors and dealing with glare from the sun.
Voice control was originally implemented for users with physical impairments but now has widespread adoption by millions of other people.
Audio descriptions are useful for anyone who likes to do more than one thing at once. For example, if you’re watching TV while cooking dinner, it doesn’t matter if you miss a facial expression or a non-verbal interaction because the audio description will keep you informed.
Innovation: Accessibility drives innovation because it seeks to dismantle barriers created by disabilities. For example, the first commercial email service was created by someone who was hearing-impaired and needed an alternative to telephone communication. Of course, now it is used universally throughout the world. Accessibility pushes us to think beyond traditional solutions for a more human-centred approach.
Legal risks: Accessibility is now a legal requirement to ensure people with disabilities have the same digital access to information as everyone else. Legal implications means potential fines and regulatory scrutiny, reputational damage and an overall competitive disadvantage.
You simply can’t afford to not offer an accessible experience.
The European Accessibility Act of 2025 will certainly impact small businesses, so it’s time to prepare now, and make your software or business services more accessible. Here are some ways to get ready.
Conducting an audit is an important first step to identify any problems or issues with your software or digital products. You could bring in experts to do this for you, or go through the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) process yourself with the assistance of tools like Axe, Lighthouse or WAVE.
If you don’t have full team buy-in, you’ll constantly be working to fix issues and errors that pop up. Be proactive in integrating accessibility and provide training opportunities for your team. There are some great resources out there, including W3C’s Introduction to Web Accessibility (via edX), a free course by the creators of WCAG, which is a great starting point.
Join forums like WebAIM or campaigns like Global Accessibility Awareness Day to keep apprised of important issues.
And, most importantly, find your own organisation’s accessibility champion! This person can help provide regular training and updates and help lead and manage accessibility efforts.
Most modern accessibility laws reference WCAG 2.0 or 2.1 Level AA as the standard for digital compliance. It’s a good idea to prioritise these guidelines to help meet the EAA laws. WCAG standards are based around four core principles mentioned previously as part of EAA: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
Usually, there are some quick and easy fixes you can implement right away. This could be cleaning up alt text on images, fixing color contrast issues, or ensuring support for keyboard navigation and screen readers.
A few common pitfalls to watch for:
If you have any customers or clients with disabilities, it can be very beneficial to bring them into the fold and ask for their feedback while using or testing your software and services. This can provide valuable insights on potential problems or issues with the user experience from their perspective.
Explore how you can integrate accessibility into your engineering, design, development and QA workflows. With the appropriate training, your teams will have the knowledge to keep accessibility at the forefront, no matter what their area of expertise.
It’s important to remember that accessibility is a journey, and not a checkbox. It takes time and continuous improvement to work toward a fully accessible experience.
Let’s say you’re an awards manager looking for awards software. It’s important that you vet any potential software during the procurement process to ensure the solution provides accessibility features to your end users. Otherwise, they’ll undo the work you’ve done to make your own software and web content more accessible.
While it’s not required by the law, creating an accessibility statement is a best practice under the European Accessibility Act (EAA). A statement outlining your accessibility status, standards used, known limitations and feedback process can demonstrate transparency, reduce your risk and support users with disabilities.
Award Force is designed, tested and maintained with accessibility in mind. Our software is compliant with the following standards:
You can download our Voluntary Product Accessibility Report (VPAT) to read our software’s conformance with these accessibility standards and guidelines.
“These compliances help make our software usable for people with disabilities,” Martin said. “Our clients can be reassured that if any of their users have disabilities, they can do everything that people without disabilities can do. It also means they won’t run into any legal issues with various laws because we meet those requirements. This is important to us.”
“Accessibility rules and guidelines have been around for a number of years,” Martin said. “But, with this new legislation, accessibility is moving to the forefront. This means that everyone in society can participate. It’s good for trade, and ultimately good for everybody.”
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