Myths, Misunderstandings, and Magic Tools: Demystifying the European Accessibility Act

The countdown to the European Accessibility Act has begun, and organizations across the EU and beyond are racing to understand what this landmark legislation means for their products and services. In this timely conversation, accessibility expert Susanna Laurin returns to AXSChat to separate fact from fiction about the EAA ahead of its June 2025 implementation.

Susanna reveals a concerning readiness gap, with European-based companies generally better prepared than their American counterparts who often mistakenly view the EAA through a WCAG-only lens. Large global organizations with established compliance departments have plans in place, while smaller businesses and those in sectors previously untouched by accessibility requirements remain dangerously unaware of their obligations - with just days until implementation begins.

The conversation dives into prevalent misconceptions surrounding the EAA, from the false belief that all websites must be accessible to misunderstandings about grace periods and documentation requirements. Susanna cautions against the growing industry of "quick-fix" accessibility solutions and overnight experts offering magical tools that promise compliance with minimal effort.

A fascinating geographic divide emerges in the discussion, with Northern and Western European countries demonstrating greater preparedness than their Eastern and Southern counterparts. This pattern mirrors previous implementation experiences with the Web Accessibility Directive and reflects broader differences in accessibility maturity across the continent.

Perhaps most concerning is the critical shortage of qualified accessibility professionals, creating a situation where monitoring authorities are competing with private companies to recruit from the same limited talent pool. Susanna makes a compelling case that the long-term solution lies in fundamentally changing how we educate digital professionals, integrating accessibility as a core skill rather than specialized knowledge.

Join us for this essential conversation that looks beyond immediate compliance concerns to envision a more sustainable and inclusive digital future for Europe. Whether you're responsible for accessibility in your organization or simply interested in how technology and policy intersect, this episode offers valuable insights into one of the most significant digital accessibility developments in recent years.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:29 EAA Readiness and Awareness
• 4:23 Country Differences in Preparedness
• 6:43 Misinformation and Common Myths
• 15:42 US Companies Expanding to European Markets
• 22:30 Accessibility Training and Resource Gaps
• 26:10 Education and Future of Accessibility

Transcript

Neilo Milliken: 0:00

Hello and welcome to AXSChat Myself and Antonio. Today Debra's taking a day off, well-deserved, of course. We're delighted to welcome back regular here on AXSChat, Susanna Laurin. Susanna, it's great to have you with us. I'm sorry I missed the last time. My deepest apologies, so I make up for it now. So it's really good to have you back. You're doing a lot of things. Obviously you are running the Funka Foundation. You're also doing an awful lot of work right now with IAAP and others talking about the very imminent European Accessibility Act coming into force. So lots going on. So welcome back, thank you. Good to be here, yeah, so welcome back, thank you.

Susanna Laurin: 0:45

Good to be here.

Neilo Milliken: 0:46

Yeah, so we're in June 2025. This is a date that a lot of accessibility people have sort of circled in their calendar and there's been a lot of talk around the EAA. But I think there's still quite a lot of misconceptions and quite a lot of organizations are sort of only now waking up to the fact that the, the ea exists. I'm aware of what's going on in my own organization, but you're talking to people across different sectors, so what's your view in terms of readiness and awareness and general levels of sort of understanding of what the legislation mean for organizations and for consumers?

Susanna Laurin: 1:29

I see two trends.

Susanna Laurin: 1:32

One is that organizations that are based in Europe are better prepared, not because they are generally better, but because they understand EU legislation better in general, and especially organizations from the other side of the pond having difficulties understanding how EU is, about this being WCAG or this being websites.

Susanna Laurin: 1:53

So really coming from the US perspective or having the US lens, when you look at this then it becomes blurred, and so I think that is a big difference.

Susanna Laurin: 2:02

And then maybe more important, I think, is the size of the organization really large organizations with a global reach and a compliance department, or really people looking at legislation and standards and so on in different parts of the world about this for many years, and even though they may not be kind of in perfect shape, they at least know what this is about and they have a plan for it, whereas small and medium-sized companies, and especially in sectors who haven't been kind of touched by other legislation in the EU before, they, I think, are still I'm not sure that they have yet woken up.

Susanna Laurin: 2:41

To be honest, I think they will wake up when the monitoring agency is kind of knocking, because we still see in quite a few sectors that organizations are completely new to this and I can also see, on the type of questions we get sometimes from after webinars and events, that people really have no clue. So I think there's still a large proportion of organizations that will struggle a lot when they find out, and that is a pity, because I think that's kind of backwards First getting the complaints or having a problem and then trying to fix it. That's usually not a good thing. So it's a pity that we haven't been we, the community, haven't been better at putting this out there, and maybe also the government should have been doing more, I think.

Neilo Milliken: 3:24

Yeah, I think that you explained to me years ago now the difference between gdpr and and um, the eaa, because of the structure of it, because the gdpr is a piece of regulation and it goes right the way across all of europe and it's harmonized, whereas the member states here get to produce their own localized regulation and act into the local laws, and that means there can be variance and it also means that the enforcement bodies at a local level may interpret things differently.

Neilo Milliken: 3:56

So this is this is a complexity that we're mindful of within my own organization, and I think it's going to be interesting to watch some of this play out as those monitoring bodies and agencies start getting to work, because I think there's various levels of preparedness amongst the countries as well in terms of the monitoring bodies, from what we're seeing. Do you think that there are particular countries that are going to be more prepared on this than others? Or do you think that there are particular countries that are going to be more prepared on this than others? Or do you think that there are particular, you know where you think that we're likely to sort of see movement and enforcement earlier, which might then have that sort of domino effect across the rest of the member states, or is it too early to tell?

Susanna Laurin: 4:43

Well, I think you can see the same trend as we had with the Web Accessibility Directive and clearly the type of questions I get from different parts of Europe shows that there is a difference between matureness, if you will, or readiness.

Susanna Laurin: 4:57

And it can be, because there's still quite a lot of difference between just how accessible countries are in the public sector, and I think we see exactly the same trend here. So, in general, north and Western Europe are better than East and South. I mean, that's kind of the broad picture. And you can also see that on the same type of lists that go, which member states are always kind of saying yes when something comes from Brussels and which ones are saying, oh, we don't really want to do this. So that's the same kind of list that we can see who are meeting the accessibility requirements in a good way. So I really think there is a difference in attitude and maybe tradition in the countries, but also just the fact that there are not enough experts around. So how can they? I mean these competent authorities that they're called because monitoring is for the Web Access Committee directly.

Susanna Laurin: 5:45

But here we have surveillance authorities and competent authorities. They I mean most of them are new to this topic, so they need to recruit and train people. And if in a country which is quite often the case that we have already too few experts on the ground and the kind of generic or generalist ICT companies also have quite a low level of competence in this, I mean, where would they find these people? And I have very clear view on this from some countries here where I can see that the competent authorities are stealing or recruiting people from the companies. So now we have, in some countries, a very good set of experts surveilling this, but where are the experts that are supposed to lead the actual work? And that is how small this industry is. So that, I think, is a real, real problem with this.

Antonio Santos: 6:36

We know that there's been quite a good number of elections this year in Europe, so change in government and new people in place. Have you seen any particular country excelling in the way how they communicate this to the private sector, trying to educate, trying to do something that can involve them in a kind of educational way?

Susanna Laurin: 6:57

Well, not that I'm maybe impressed of, but I think there are countries where they have done quite a lot of webinars and they have written material and also videos and so on. So I mean Sweden, I think, is a rather good example. They have quite a lot of material. Also, Germany is doing quite a lot. So I think there are, and also Ireland, I think, is one of the good examples where there is material, at least to. I don't know how much outreach they have done, but there is good information around, at least to. I don't know how much outreach they have done, but there is good information around.

Susanna Laurin: 7:27

But you can really see that it's the same countries that have been very proactive also when it comes to the web accessibility directives. I think it has to do with the matureness and how much government in general know about accessibility and what tradition they have and kind of the expectation of disabled persons, organizations, but also the kind of the IT industry in general. And just in exactly the same way that we saw happening before the Web Accessibility Directive entered into force, we see now new companies popping up and offering all sorts of magical tools that will fix everything in 12 days or 24 hours or something like that and also quite a few people who used to be UX designers or service designers or test or whatever. They had another title a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden they're accessibility experts. So I think it's really very similar to what happened when the Web Accessibility Directive entered into force and the Web Accessibility Directive Engine into force.

Antonio Santos: 8:24

I met a startup last year at Web Summit. We were trying to get into this space and we were talking and I saw and you guys evolved oh, we are just starting and we are still trying to figure out. But then this is a kind of in this kind of networking, we're just talking, the two of us, but then you go to their website and it's a completely different story. So you are telling me what are they starting, trying to figure out things? But then I go to their website you seem to have figured everything out.

Susanna Laurin: 8:58

And there's still so much incorrect information out there when it comes to the EAA and misunderstanding and misinterpretation, so that could be a full-time job for somebody just to kind of fact check what commercial companies are claiming, and I think that is. I mean, like you said, neil, it's a bit complex because it's a directive and so on. I wouldn't say that is. I don't think that is really the issue here. I think the issue is that the sheer ambition of this legislation, that is, the whole distribution chain is covered and also organizations outside of the EU and all of that. That is more and broader and more holistic view.

Susanna Laurin: 9:37

And we have packaging and support services and I mean parts of kind of industry that has never been touching accessibility before. So that, I think, is that's the complexity and just getting that to work. The difference between countries that's a problem for an organization like Atos, who have of course, clients all over and so on, and you need to try to kind of meet them with the right things. But I mean the requirements are the same in all countries. So just picking which one is the most hard on this or which one is monitoring most or which one has the worst penalties and things like that I don't really think that's the obstacle here. The obstacle is getting people to know and getting the right information out there.

Neilo Milliken: 10:16

So yeah, I agree, and I know you made a comment about people interpreting it as WCAG, but I think that even in countries or even in bits of industries where they're not covered, there are other legislations and there's a commonality in technical requirements. Now, not everything's the same and there's definitely more in EN 301549 than there is in WCAG, and you're right, I think it was like packaging and so on. So if we're trying to reassure organizations doing this work and it's that the bulk of the work that they need to do isn't different country by country that there's a clear convergence of sort of technical requirements at least. So you said there's a lot of misinformation. What are some of the most common things that you're hearing, the myths that you would like to bust, if you?

Susanna Laurin: 11:13

every website in the eu needs to be accessible. That's sadly not the case, and um, and that this is a legislation that covers all the private sector. That's also not the case. And and, of course, if you just need wikag, that's fine, that's also not the case. And then, like, this is an extension of the web accessibility directive, which is you may think that's just as a kind of a detail, that it's not an extension, but it's another law.

Susanna Laurin: 11:38

But they differ so much when it comes to enforcement and so on, so that misunderstanding leads to misinterpretation of the accessibility statement and so on. And then, of course, the whole reporting and documentation part of this. This is very specific in the EAA what you need to report and so on. And then I hear that if you just, you know, use VPAT, then that's fine and that won't fly because it's not the same requirements. So those are some of the misinterpretations. And then I think it's a big also the overlap between, for example, e-commerce.

Susanna Laurin: 12:12

So what happens when a government website actually charges for something? Is that e-commerce or not? Government website actually charges for something? Is that e-commerce or not? And if you charge for something that is not sold online but it's, the payment is online but what you actually buy is kind of in a physical shop and so on. So there's kind of the fringe cases or or things like that that people look, look into. And, of course, the grace periods. I don't know how many times I have emailed people saying what you write in your website is not entirely true, because it's not like all services that is on the market now can stay on the market until 2030. So the grace periods I think people really want to push everything to 2030. Only very specific and particular cases. You can push your requirements five years, so for most organizations it's in 12 days.

Neilo Milliken: 13:07

Yeah, and some of those things are around the more long-term products that have very long product life cycles. So things like I think ATMs was, I think, an example where the gross periods are.

Susanna Laurin: 13:26

That's an opt-in, opt-out thing. That's not in the app. Member states can choose to let you keep the self-service terminal until its economic life up to 20 years.

Neilo Milliken: 13:40

But I think the other one that there are lots of debate on is what constitutes an existing product and what constitutes a new product in a world where we may have a product, say, like Windows 11. It's still named Windows 11, but it's in a constant state of flux, and I know Microsoft are doing an awful lot of work on accessibility and are taking the EAA seriously. So I'm not pointing at them, but I was using that as an idea of something that people are familiar with, which has a version number but which is not the same. At what point does that pre-existing product become a new product? And that's something that people are struggling with.

Susanna Laurin: 14:26

Yeah, and nobody knows, because that's not foreseen. There's nothing in the preambles or in the. I mean the legislator did not define this on that specific level, so only the court of justice can decide or determine what that will be. But there will be, I mean, as soon as the surveillance authorities or competent authorities start working and the working group where they all work together, when they start documenting how did we define this in this country and how do we define this in another, and then they need to align on that, of course this in this country and how do we define this in another, and then they need to align on that, of course. So there will be kind of a best practice or a practice, at least after I don't know how long, but after a while, when this starts happening the surveillance then we will know more about that and I think when we have one or two examples it will be more clear how this has been assessed.

Antonio Santos: 15:13

Yeah, it's a bit like case law right, because on that title, another element is that, okay, windows 11 is an operating system, but a brand manufacturer might launch a new laptop today with that operating system.

Susanna Laurin: 15:28

Yes.

Antonio Santos: 15:29

And that's a new product.

Susanna Laurin: 15:32

Yeah, it's a new product, but it's not a problem today because it's before. But I mean it's on the 29th, but it's not a problem today because it's on the 29th. That's when we end up in trouble.

Antonio Santos: 15:41

I had a few ads on my LinkedIn feed, all from US companies trying to sell me and engage with European accessibility ads. So I found that quite amusing, because I haven't seen any ad on my feed from an European company, so I found that a little bit curious to see. But I think in one sense US organizations have been always more aggressive in terms of selling services than the European.

Susanna Laurin: 16:09

Yes, aggressive sounds a bit negative maybe, but yes, I think maybe they are marketing and promoting things in another way. And let's be honest, I mean the US have been leading both in accessibility and in digital technology and everything for many years. I don't think they are leading as much now and I really think that with this act and with all the innovation happening in Europe, I hope and think that we will kind of be in the lead for a while. But of course, there are many more companies doing accessibility things in the US, not only in absolute numbers, but also per inhabitant or whatever. I don't know how to measure that, but I mean it's just there are many more around there and the market is much bigger. So we also see quite a few from Israel. But I'm surprised that we don't have more Asian companies providing things. That has always been a surprise to me, because they have many brilliant technology companies, but why don't we see them?

Neilo Milliken: 17:04

I do get a fair number of PDF remediation direct contacts in my LinkedIn feed From one specific country. Yes, yes, yes, from one specific country. Yes, yes, yes, uh, so so it's not like they they are not alive to the idea of that.

Susanna Laurin: 17:24

So I think that what's interesting is that where is I mean?

Neilo Milliken: 17:27

yes, indeed, but the angle at which they're marketing that pdf remediation has changed. You need to do all of your documentation for the a. Let us help you with this. So, um, but yes, I have not seen a lot in the way of stuff from Japan or from other parts of Southeast Asia on this, which actually is quite surprising.

Susanna Laurin: 17:47

I also. We see quite a lot of white labeling from um like the overlay companies and other things happening now presented in Europe as EU companies or labeled as EU companies, but really the engine behind this is one of the others, so we see that quite a lot, antony you were about to interject.

Antonio Santos: 18:08

Asian companies are trying to operate at a certain level in Europe. I don't find that strange because they don't do it in Western to other services as well. So I think it's not a market where they are widely active in selling digital services. So I don't find that strange. I think that they are a bit uncomfortable in playing in this market or they might not have anyone here that can represent them. That's how I see it.

Neilo Milliken: 18:41

I think that some of them are. You know, the games companies and the technology companies are doing accessibility in their products but not innovating in, and a lot of them are Japanese-owned. They're not doing it in this particular space. I know one of my team went out to Japan to accessibility conferences. A lot of them are Japanese-owned. They're not doing it in this particular space. I know one of my team went out to Japan to accessibility conferences and she's probably got a better feel for what they're doing there. But it's not going outside of the country.

Susanna Laurin: 19:10

No, but it's clear that US-based companies I think almost all of them see Europe now as a kind of a market where they want to be or need to be, so that is why I was just thinking that we could have a company from other places as well.

Neilo Milliken: 19:27

Yeah, no, I agree, and I think that A it was a growing market opportunity because of the legislation and they generally marketed based upon compliance. So they it's a sort of natural extension of opportunity. They understand, you know, big new law. We can go with our sort of extend our play into this market but at the same time they have the maturity and the scale to maybe do it. But they are potentially also trying to mitigate some of the possible reduction in their home market right now. So there's more of a focus because that that market is somewhat uneven from what I see. You know, at a federal level there's really clearly a retrenchment and a push back against accessibility as part of dei. It's not the same at a state level from what I can see, but it is is definitely something that will be concerning the venture capitalists that own most of these.

Susanna Laurin: 20:40

I think the whole community in the US is kind of worried and just not really knowing where this is going. It's a natural thing. It's not that I and I know I sound very sounding very negative. That's not my idea. I really think there's very, really, really good people and a lot of good innovation and we can really learn from the US, but I do hope that there are also European companies or European leaders that will be on top of this, because I don't want us to move in a kind of litigation.

Susanna Laurin: 21:13

I think there are some really positive things in how accessibility is kind of presented and argued for and so on in the EU. That I personally think is a better way of doing things, and I think it would be a pity if we were kind of eaten by US companies and then the whole logic is kind of threatening instead of trying to do the good thing. I don't think that is how accessibility is best sold in the EU, and that's why I really hope for kind of a growth in our industry here locally and or a combination of getting inspiration from other places, of course, but still kind of doing it with an EU flavor.

Neilo Milliken: 21:53

I agree. I don't want to scare people into doing this work. I want people to be enthused about it because it makes products better, improves lives, it contributes to society, it creates wealth in countries at a at a macro level. Those are the reasons that we should be doing these things, um, rather than thinking about this as just a tick box compliance exercise.

Antonio Santos: 22:20

On another topic, have you observed any interest in relation to the AAP people applying for training certifications? Has this triggered anything?

Susanna Laurin: 22:32

Yeah, I think I don't have any scientific proof but although the International Association of Accessibility Professionals who are providing professional certification, so I mean we should also be kind of hit by what is happening in the US and so on but membership and certification is kind of on the rise, which is really reassuring and good I think, and kind of the balance between where this interest is happening is kind of focusing more towards the EU. So I think there is a reason there, but I can't prove it and there's not huge numbers. But we do see a race and I think also just the fact that when I speak to colleagues in other kind of small accessibility expert companies based in the EU, everyone is like up here with so and I, that is a good thing, but we just can't. It doesn't scale because we are all very small and we are not. You know, we just when we reach capacity. That's kind of what. We can't do anything more and we don't have time to to recruit and train more people. So there is a capacity problem. But I do see more people very much more interested and we have had more people. So there is a capacity problem, but I do see more people very much more interested, and we have had more people attending our dropping sessions for the IWAP, where we just talk about membership and so on, than ever before.

Susanna Laurin: 23:47

I think we do see. I mean, the legislation is the only thing I can think of that would trigger that, so, but it could also be that people have woken up and become more nice people. But it could also be that people have woken up and become more nice people.

Antonio Santos: 23:58

But you see us coming to a point where organizations are going to justify the fact that they are not doing it as they should because they are not enough professionals in the market, they are not enough resources. Do you see that that will trigger some justifications for not doing it in time?

Susanna Laurin: 24:15

I think people use all sorts of do you see that that will trigger some justifications for not doing it in time? I I think people use all sorts of argument for why they are not doing this in time and they are delayed, and then there's so there's always something you can went to, but what we do see is is more interest and more people getting trained and asking for training and asking for certification, and I think we just need to go with that flow and hopefully it will continue. But really, what? If you look at this from a kind of a helicopter perspective, I think before we started having all these laws, we should have changed something in the educational system, because that is where the real problem is that we are.

Susanna Laurin: 24:49

You know, we are educating graphical designers, ux designers, content managers, developers what have you? Every year, they just flow out of university and they have never heard of accessibility in 35% of them. That is the real problem, and I mean what IWP is doing afterwards, I think is a good job. I mean, I'm one of the co-founders, I like what we're doing, but it's not going to fix the problem because we can only certify a small number of experts. That is important, but it's much more important that the general, the volumes of generic designers who are not experts, but that they know the basics of accessibility. So we need to start training every web professional from the start, from when they start doing web something or digital something.

Neilo Milliken: 25:35

That's when we need to put accessibility into the curriculum and just make sure that everyone knows it should be as as natural as any other programming language or whatever basics people I agree with you, but we're teaching people tech skills from school, not a, not at university level, so we need to be starting this way earlier, and so we did the apprenticeship standard for digital accessibility specialists in the UK. Now one of the positive knock-on effects is it starts to trickle down into earlier. Education Still needs to happen more and it still needs to be in the generalist education as well, and when we were doing stuff with the Institute of Coding, one of the things I was trying to push for in these short training packages was also to include a bit of accessibility in each of these things. I know that Teach Access is trying to do that in the US as well, but you're right, it needs much more focus and investment from governments to make this scale.

Neilo Milliken: 26:39

And as we look at all of the things that are coming out with AI-powered tooling I heard someone describing it as vibe coding the other day that stuff is innately inaccessible, even when you're telling it to be accessible. The stuff that it's learned is sucking in it's learning from the web, which is innately inaccessible. Even when you're telling it to be accessible, the stuff that it's learned, it's sucking in it's learning from the web, which is innately inaccessible. So there's some work to be done on those kind of frameworks, and the companies that are building these things could build in better frameworks and guardrails for creating more accessible content. So there's educating the people early. There's building some of this stuff into the tools, like in Figma, properly, please, because Figma had been doing some good stuff but then they released sites, which was a bit of a problem, and those content management systems, those content creation systems.

Neilo Milliken: 27:32

If we could include some of the stuff so that we have the right metadata, that would be wonderful. It would help a lot, and I think that maybe that's where I hold some hope for innovation coming up, where we can find new ways to scale, because we can't just scale humans, we have to find better ways of doing it super. So thank you so much for coming on again, and I know you took precious time out from your break to meet with us today, so I really appreciate that. Susanna, as always, it's a pleasure talking with you, and I need to also thank our friends at Amazon and MyClearTips for keeping us on air and keeping us captured. Thank you.