A Global Accessibility Awareness Day conversation with Shawn Jordison, The Accessibility Guy, on digital access, inclusive content, AI, and usability for everyone

On ⁠Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2026⁠, Alycia and Marty host ⁠Shawn Jordison⁠ (“⁠The Accessibility Guy⁠”) to discuss why digital accessibility is not just compliance but innovation and human impact. Shawn shares his path from an 18-year-old student worker creating ⁠braille ⁠and alternate media at a community college to leading accessibility roles across California’s 116 community colleges, then launching his YouTube channel and accessibility business. He describes living with ⁠Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease⁠ and recounts a pivotal experience helping a student with a learning disability use text-to-speech to succeed in college. They address common organizational barriers—time, money, overwhelm, and inaccessible tools—and recommend starting with accessible authoring tools, using built-in features like headings and alt text, testing with ⁠NVDA⁠, and inventorying content before tackling legacy work. Shawn also explores AI’s growing role in access and ends with “be an accessibility champion” and “accessibility equals usability,” alongside plugs for ⁠Own It Mastery Collective⁠ and ⁠The Accessibility Check⁠.

Pull Quotes Worth Turning the Volume Up For

 Do not compare yourself to anyone else, because comparison’s the thief of joy.

~ Shawn Jordison

Organizations really need to shift the mindset of, ‘This costs too much or it takes too much time,’ and instead bake it in the process.

~ Shawn Jordison

 I tend to ride the wave versus trying to protect myself from it.

~ Shawn Jordison

The Takeaways That Make Inclusion Usable

Episode Roadmap: Your Accessible Guide Through the Conversation

Free Tools to Make Access Less Scary 

NVDA Screen Reader

NVDA is a free screen reader for Windows. Shawn recommended it as a way to start understanding how people who are blind or low vision may experience digital content.

WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

WAVE helps evaluate web pages for accessibility issues directly in your browser. It is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and can be useful for testing public pages, password protected pages, intranet content, and dynamic pages.

axe DevTools Browser Extension

axe DevTools is a browser based accessibility testing extension that helps developers, testers, and designers find accessibility issues early in the web development process.

Google Lighthouse

Lighthouse is built into Chrome DevTools and can audit web pages for accessibility, performance, SEO, best practices, and more.

Microsoft Accessibility Checker

Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker can be used before sharing Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Outlook emails, and OneNote notebooks to help make content easier to read and edit.

Adobe Acrobat PDF Accessibility Checker

Adobe provides guidance for creating, checking, and fixing accessible PDFs in Acrobat Pro through its accessibility tools and reports.

W3C Web Accessibility Principles

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative explains the foundational accessibility principles behind WCAG, including perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust, also known as POUR.

Windows Narrator

Narrator is Microsoft’s built in Windows screen reader. It reads what is on the screen out loud and can help users browse, read, and navigate digital content.

Apple VoiceOver

VoiceOver is Apple’s screen reader for Mac. Apple’s guide explains how to use VoiceOver with a keyboard, refreshable braille display, or trackpad.

Colorado HB21 1110 Accessibility Law

Shawn referenced Colorado’s accessibility framework as a helpful example for organizations. Colorado HB21 1110 strengthens protections related to disability access and government information technology.

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