In this webinar, we'll dive into the findings from Level Access's State of Digital Accessibility report and 3Play Media's State of Captioning report for 2019. We'll explore findings into how other organizations are tackling digital accessibility, the drivers behind making content accessible, and the future of digital accessibility standards.

1. THE DIGITAL
ACCESSIBILITY
LANDSCAPE: WHAT
YOUR ORGANIZATION
NEEDS TO KNOW IN 2019
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📱 www.3playmedia.com l @3playmedia l #a11y
Lily Bond
Director of Marketing
3Play Media
Tim Springer
CEO
Level Access

2. What will we cover?
▸Trends in digital accessibility
▸Digital accessibility standards and laws
▸Procurement drivers for digital accessibility
▸Trends in video accessibility
▸How accessibility laws apply to video
▸State of video captioning
▸Digital accessibility solutions you can begin implementing today

3. TRENDS IN DIGITAL
ACCESSIBILITY

4. A Graying Globe
▸ The number of people worldwide aged 80 and over
will quadruple to 400 million by 2050
▸ For the first time in history, there will be more
people over the age of 65 than under the age of 16
▸ 20% of the U.S. population will be over 65 by 2030
▸ “42% of adults ages 65 and older owning
smartphones is up from just 18% in 2013
▸ “67% of seniors use the internet – a
55-percentage-point increase in just under two
decades.”
▸ “45% of seniors under the age
of 75 say they … use social networking sites,
compared with 20% of those ages 75 and older.”

5. Disability Prevalence By Age

6. Omni-Channel
Commerce
▸ e-Commerce
▹ 10.2% of all retail in Q1 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau)
▹ 9.2% of all retail in Q1 2018 (U.S. Census Bureau)
▹ Estimated by eMarketer to hit 14.6% worldwide by
2020
▸ Retailers and retail service providers developing strategies
that are
▹ Multi-device
▹ Integrate physical and digital experience
▹ Multi-modal
▸ Will plaintiffs’ attorneys do the same?
▹ Initial demand letters target mobile apps starting
to be sent out

7. eCommerce
Drives Down
Prices
▸ Prices at online stores are falling faster than prices in
real world stores
▸ This means access to online shopping and
eCommerce becomes an economic advantage
▸ Food for thought
▹ Does the presence of Airbnb in a market drive
down hotel room prices?
▹ Does the presence of Uber drive down taxi
prices?

8. The Nature of Work is Shifting
▸ 1 in 3 Americans freelanced this year
▸ Americans spend more than 1B hours
per week freelancing
▸ 64% of freelancers found work online
▸ Number of freelancers is growing
rapidly
▹ 53.0M – 2014
▹ 56.7M – 2018
▸ Those jobs are increasingly available
online and intermediated by
technology platforms
▸ Leads you back to a question we
asked earlier – is accessible
technology now an employment issue?

9. To thrive in the economy we
need access to learning
opportunities
▸ Massive growth in online
training resources
▸ Employees increasingly see
training as the path to
advancements
▸ Freelancers far more likely to
update skills rapidly than
non-freelancers

10. DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY
STANDARDS AND LAWS

11. Americans with
Disabilities Act
(ADA)
▸ At least 2,258 digital accessibility cases filed in
2018
▸ Different judges, different cases, different
rulings
▸ Slim on precedent, principally fact based
▸ Vast majority of cases settle
▸ Appellate decisions starting to trickle out of the
Ninth and Eleventh Circuits
▸ Supreme court petition for review in Dominos
v. Robles

12. ADA Lawsuits
▸ ADA digital accessibility litigation
continues to accelerate
dramatically
▸ Increased 210% YoY in 2017 and
177% YoY in 2018
▸ Still a small percentage of overall
ADA Title III lawsuits
▸ Number of plaintiff firms filing
lawsuits continues to expand
▹ Idea: The supply of lawsuits
is governed by the number
of active plaintiffs counsel
in the space
Takeaway: We expect growth will slow
but still be robust going forward

13. What firms are
responsible?
▸ The top twenty plaintiff firms accounted for 74% of the
lawsuits filed in 1H 2019
▸ Average top twenty firm – removing Cohen & Mizrahi
LLP – filed 12 more cases in 1H 2019 than 2H 2018
▹ 28 lawsuits -> 40 lawsuits / firm
▸ We’ve tracked another fifty-three firms active in filing
lawsuits in 1H 2019
▸ As firms filing fewer suits catch up with the top twenty
firms filling rates expect ongoing growth in the number
of lawsuits
▹ ~ 6000 lawsuits / year in capacity with the
current set of plaintiff firms
Takeaway: We still see much room for growth in plaintiff
firms filing suits of this type

14. ADA Digital
Accessibility
Lawsuits
▸ List of industries with raw count of lawsuits in
2H 2018 versus 1H 2019
▹ We look at 60 industries
▸ Retail and consumer facing services continue
to dominate
▹ Drastic uptick in Hotels driven by three
firms
▸ As we start to reach saturation in some
industries expect new industries to be
opened
Takeaway: Outsize risk in industries that are (i)
consumer targeted and (ii) relate to a physical
place of business

15. Other
Takeaways
▸ Multiple lawsuits or demand letters against a single
organization are common
▹ Winner in our database had five lawsuits filed in
the last 12 months
▹ We estimate a roughly 30% chance once you’ve
been sued you’ll be sued again in a year
▹ Bigger the brand the bigger the risk
▸ Lawsuits tend to target brands and specific properties
▹ Multi-brand entities are often targeted many
times in a year
▹ Multi-property entities are often targeted many
times in a year
▸ Expertise matters – you need to have an actual, qualified
expert engaged if you expect to end up in court
▸ ADA Title I litigation may occur against technology
providers – more news
to come

16. Department of
Ed OCR
Complaints
▸ 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
▸ Since October 1, 2013 901 resolution
agreements or letters referenced WCAG
▹ No change in this number since
January 2019
Note: There’s a lot of bad data out there
confusing OCR investigations and ADA lawsuits
so proceed with caution

17. PROCUREMENT
DRIVERS FOR DIGITAL
ACCESSIBILITY

18. The Survey
▸ Recently released The State of
Digital Accessibility 2019 report
▹ Developed in partnership
with G3ict
▸ Surveyed 550 digital accessibility
professionals
▸ Wide range of industries, roles
and organization sizes

19. The Industry
Wants
Standards
Over 85%
want the ADA updated to include specific
regulations for digital accessibility
54.6%
said they are accelerating their accessibility
plans due to the current litigation trends

20. Where Accessibility Lives
Accessibility is Everyone's Job– but someone has to own it.

21. Accessibility as
a Value &
Inclusive
Maturity
▸ Over 65% said it was “very important”
for them to be compliant with
accessibility standards in their industry
▹ Competitive impact of inclusive
products in marketplace
▹ Acknowledgement of accessiblity
as core value
▸ 72% of companies with 5,000 employees
have a dedicated professional overseeing
accessibility
▸ 31% ask employees to be IAAP certified
and 47% would consider it

22. WCAG 2.1
▸ WCAG 2.1 adoption is proceeding at a
measured pace
▹ Disability rights advocates starting
demand it in complaints and settlements
▹ Not currently slated to be a rolled into
Section 508
▹ Highly likely to be included in EU
standards
▸ WCAG 2.1 criteria impact design of products
▸ Clearly expands testing to automatic variations
of pages
64% are already adopting WCAG 2.1 guidelines or
plan to in the near future

23. Challenges for
Accessibility
Programs
1. Incorporating accessibility earlier in the development
lifecycle
a. #1 challenge for product, UX, and engineering
folks
2. Budget for accessibility program
a. High on list for each role
3. Training
a. Majority of developers ranked their team as
beginners and some groups such as
marketing had almost no a11y training
4. Too many content creators – can’t monitor
everything
a. Biggest challenge for higher education
5. Development time
a. Competing needs for time

24. Testing Includes People with Disabilities
▸ Nearly half of
product development
teams do not
conduct usability
testing by people
with disabilities
▸ Larger organizations
more likely to
perform testing with
users that have
disabilities

25. TRENDS IN VIDEO
ACCESSIBILITY

26. The Video
Picture
MORE VIDEOIs uploaded to the web in 1 month than TV has created in 3
decades.
82%Of the world’s Internet traffic will be video by 2022.
1 MILLIONMinutes of video crossing the internet by second by 2020.

27. Why Video a11y
Is Important
71%Of people with disabilities leave a website immediately if it is
not accessible.
48 MILLIONAmericans are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. That’s 20%!
24 MILLIONAmericans are Blind or low-vision. That’s 10%!

28. 12%Captions increase view time on Facebook videos by 12%
41%Of videos are incomprehensible w/o sound or captions
80%Of Facebook viewers react negatively to videos autoplaying without sound or
captions

31. 98.6%Of students find captions helpful for learning
75%Use captions as a learning aid
FOCUSIs the #1 reason students use captions for learning
RESEARCH: www.3playmedia.com/student-research-study/

32. New Research
by USFSP -
preliminary
results
3%Increase in grades for students who used closed captions
8%Increase in grades for students who used interactive transcripts
15-16%Increase in grades for students who used interactive transcripts in
2 courses with the highest participation

33. WHY IS AUDIO DESCRIPTION IMPORTANT?
Accessibility
> Estimated 23.7 million
Americans (10%) have
trouble seeing.
Autism
> Helps to better understand
emotional and social cues
Flexibility
> View videos in eyes-free
environments
Language Development
> Listening is a key step in
learning language.
Auditory Learners
> 20-30% of students retain
information best through
sound.
Inattentional Blindness
> Phenomena where you fail to
recognize visuals “in plain
sight.”

34. HOW ACCESSIBILITY
LAWS APPLY TO VIDEO

35. 3 A11y Laws
that Impact
Video
ADATitle II (Public Entities) & Title III (Places of Public
Accommodation)
Section 504 & 508Federal & federally funded programs.
CVAAOnline video that previously appeared on television

36. WCAG for Video
Level AClosed Captions; transcript for audio only; text description
Level AAAudio description; live captioning
Level AAAExtended audio description; sign language track; live transcription
for audio only

37. Lawsuits
STREAMING MEDIA
NAD vs. Netflix; ACB vs. Netflix; NAD vs. Hulu; ACB vs. Hulu;
NAD vs. Amazon; etc.
HIGHER ED
NAD vs. Harvard & MIT; UC Berkeley; Miami University of
Ohio; Penn State; etc.
ENTERPRISE
Winn-Dixie; FedEx; Target; Hobby Lobby; Blick Art Materials;
etc.

38. STATE OF
CAPTIONING

39. The Survey
▸ Recently released The 2019 State of Captioning
▸ Survey of 1009 video accessibility professionals
▸ Wide range of industries, roles and organization sizes
https://www.3playmedia.com/resources/industry-studies/2019-state-of-captioning/

40. Captioning
Trends
INCREASINGMost participants saw their captioning needs staying the same or
increasing over the next year
58%Caption most or all of their content
38%Have a centralized process for captioning at their organization

41. 78%Of respondents caption social media video to make it accessible
70%Are captioning YouTube videos
26%Are captioning Facebook videos
Social Media
Captioning

42. Legal
Understanding
39%But only 39% have a clear policy for captioning compliance
66%Are “very” or “fairly” confident they understand what it means to
be compliant with captioning laws
50%Either believe or are unsure about whether automatic captions
fulfill legal requirements

43. 36%Said they don’t use automatic captions at all (up from less than 1% in 2018!)
37%Start with auto captions & edit them
58%Use auto captions for educational or training video
Automatic
Captions

44. 36%Said budet was the biggest barrier to captioning
35%Said resource time was the
biggest barrier to captioning
29%Said their captioning budget is $0
Biggest
Barriers

45. 28%Said legal compliance was their biggest motivator for captioning
22%Caption for user engagement
22%Caption to enhance learning
Biggest
Drivers

46. Takeaways
▸ Decreased overall usage of/reliance on automatic captions
▸ Greater confidence in legal requirements
▹ Many noted increased visibility of a11y lawsuits
▸ While respondents were more aware of their legal responsibility to
caption, they caption for a number of other reasons & benefits
▸ Increase in amount of video without an increase in the size of
budgets
https://www.3playmedia.com/resources/industry-studies/2019-state-of-captioning/

47. DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY
SOLUTIONS YOU CAN
BEGIN IMPLEMENTING
TODAY

48. What can you do now?
▸ Start small, and suggest a pilot program
▸ If you have no budget, use free tools like YouTube’s caption editor
and testing tools like Axe
▸ Train existing team members on accessibility and remediation
▸ Build accessibility into the plan for any new initiatives
▸ Get buy-in from higher ups so you can build a budget for the future
▸ Build awareness around how accessibility improves the experience
for all users!

49. Questions?
Comments?
✋ Type questions in the Q&A window
⏺ This webinar will be available for replay
Lily Bond
3Play Media
lily@3playmedia.com
@3playmedia
Tim Springer
Level Access
info@levelaccess.com
@LevelAccessA11y