We’re proud to announce that The GAAD Foundation selected our Accessibility Checker WordPress plugin as a 2023 Gaady winner. Our CEO, Amber Hinds, flew to San Francisco to demo Accessibility Checker and accept our award at the ceremony.
About the Gaadys
The GAAD Foundation was created by Joe Devon, a tech entrepreneur, and Jennison Asuncion, Head of Accessibility Engineering Evangelism at LinkedIn.
They launched Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) in 2012. In 2021, they expanded GAAD into a nonprofit. Their mission is to disrupt the culture of technology and digital product development to include accessibility as a core requirement.
The Gaady awards is a newer foundation initiative. It recognizes and celebrates contributions to the web that advance the GAAD Foundation’s vision. The foundation’s vision is:
Accessibility built into the product development lifecycle for technology and digital products.
Earlier in the year, the public nominated digital products. The GAAD Foundation’s committee evaluated the nominees, selecting three winners for 2023.
- Equalize Digital for our Accessibility Checker plugin.
- Unilever & Zappar for their efforts to create accessible QR codes on product packaging.
- Studio 24 for their work rebuilding the W3C website.
Learn more about the other winners on the Gaady website.
The Award Ceremony
Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired hosted the award ceremony on November 9, 2023. The event included a happy hour reception, product demos, and award acceptance speeches. The ceremony ended with a rap about web accessibility performed by two LinkedIn employees.
Amber felt thrilled to attend in person and accept our award.
The Gaady trophy is an incredible work of art and itself an example of attention to accessibility. Rather than purchasing a statue, Gaddy committee chair Mindy Morgan (pictured above with Amber) hand-made all of the trophies. She wanted them to be unique and tactile for someone who is blind or has low vision.
In addition to physical trophies, winners have a “virtual trophy” page on the GAAD Foundation website. See Equalize Digital’s virtual trophy here.
Accessibility Checker’s Role in Improving Accessibility Across the Web
When introducing Accessibility Checker, Joe Devon noted that WordPress powers nearly 50% of websites. Making WordPress websites more accessible is vital to building a web that everyone can use regardless of ability. If we can get everyday users of WordPress to consider accessibility, that will make a radical difference on the internet.
Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker is a tool that is available to everyone at an affordable price point. It introduces accessibility testing to people who might not know where to start.
Receiving a Gaady is an honor. The Equalize Digital team sincerely thanks the GAAD Foundation for recognizing the effort we have put into Accessibility Checker.
We hope this award inspires other developers and WordPress users to revisit their processes around accessibility. If you’re unsure where to start, try installing Accessibility Checker and see what problems it finds on your website.
