GAAD 2025: A Hive of Activity!
Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2025 was a standout this year. Now in its 14th year, GAAD has become an important day for everyone in the digital world and news of its reach and impact is impressive. As always, the publishing community had plenty to celebrate and we’ve put together a brief overview of some of the events that took place.
Here at DAISY we were pleased to publish the A-Z of Accessible Digital Publishing, a fun, high level overview of accessibility for everyone to incorporate into their GAAD plans. We encourage everyone to continue using it to focus on accessibility throughout the year.
Events to Raise Awareness
There were a number of large scale events designed around the occasion of GAAD to help spread and build awareness.
- At Amazon, GAAD became GAAM (Global Accessibility Awareness Month) which included many in person and virtual events held company-wide to celebrate and highlight accessibility.
- Arcom hosted several accessibility round tables and DAISY colleague, Fernando Pinto da Silva, was integral to this event, presenting alongside other esteemed accessibility professionals. In his introduction to the event, Martin Ajdari, President of Arcom, reminded us that “the accessibility of programmes, sites and e-books is at the heart of freedom of communication, and more broadly of our values of freedom, equality and fraternity“.
- The British Interactive Media Assciation held an Accessibility Speed Networking event providing people with many opportunities to speak with colleagues from different industries with different perspectives.
Understanding the User Experience
- Yudu published a list of top tips to highlight their focus on accessibility and many of these were centred on the user experience – spreading awareness and encouraging us all to consider the digital experience.
- The Fable accessibility team invited 3 people with disabilities who use assistive technology every day to share what makes a digital experience usable or unusable. This was a great reminder that accessibility shouldn’t be a once-per-year conversation. It should be an ongoing dialogue about how to make digital products more usable for all.
Celebrating Accessibility Teams, Individuals and Progress
Some organizations used GAAD as an opportunity to introduce accessibility staff and teams to their colleagues, celebrating their work and highlighting progress:
- Taylor and Francis celebrated GAAD by interviewing Accessibility Officer, Jennie Mather as part of the in house Insights Blog. By highlighting this role and the work that Jennie does it was a great way to spread awareness and applaud that this team does. “My team works closely with others across the business as we strive to improve the accessibility of our content to support our customers and colleagues with disabilities.”
- Microsoft shared an interview they prepared with Joe Devon, GAAD founder, who chatted about the history of GAAD, the GAAD Foundation, and his amazing Accessibility and Gen AI Podcast.
- Cambridge University Press published an article Five ways Cambridge is enhancing accessiblity in education desinged to update and educate colleages on progress and focus on accessibility. The five areas that were celebrated were: Born-accessible e-books, Accessible assessments and exam platforms, Inclusive syllabus design, Staff-led advocacy and EU Accessibility Act prep & Accessible publishing and platform updates – an impressive list of achievements!
- Sight and Sound Technology posted a wonderful tribute to their accessibility colleagues where the team gets “to see the real impact of assistive technology across all parts of life — from students learning in inclusive classrooms, to professionals overcoming communication barriers at work, to people gaining independence at home. It’s about unlocking potential, removing obstacles, and helping people thrive on their own terms.”
- Macmillan Learning published the article Creating Experiences that Support All Students which mentions “our mission is to inspire what’s possible for all learners. That mindset has helped guide our shift from content provider to a learning company. Importantly, one that’s focused not just on what we build but how we build it and who it serves. Creating a company culture that prioritizes accessibility is an important part of that evolution.”
Webinars
- WCAG 2.2 Essentials for Education Learnetic offered free access (until the end of 2025) to this expert-led webinar designed for educational publishers and content creators to ensure digital educational materials comply with the latest WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards.
- Marking a milestone: Celebrating 30 years of JAWS. JAWS for Windows launched with a simple mission: to make digital content accessible through speech. It revolutionized how blind users navigated the early Internet — and it hasn’t stopped evolving since. This special Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) event spotlights the technologies, breakthroughs, and people that have shaped digital accessibility over the years. On demand access is available.
- Pearson hosted Innovate and Include: The Future of Accessibility in Higher Ed with an impressive line up of speakers
It’s been a busy year. Not only were we excited to read about all of these activities but we noticed a huge increase in the number of social media posts, celebrations and shout outs to teams who have worked tirelessly. Springer Nature highlighted latest developments and applauded the members of staff behind all the progress that has been made: “A special shoutout to our fantastic Accessibility Team for their invaluable support and guidance in implementing these improvements.” Our congratulations to everyone across the industry!
