Digital Accessibility's Gap: AI to Bridge Mobile and Web Barriers

This event will be online on YouTube and in-person. The speaker and live stream starts at 7:30 pm ET. In-person attendees may arrive as early as 7 pm ET.

Important note
Google Maps currently incorrectly pins the location around the corner on Crosby Street. The entrance is not on Crosby. The entrance is on Spring Street, inside the Marc Jacobs International building. It is roughly halfway between Crosby and Lafayette, almost directly across Spring Street from the Chipotle restaurant.

Description
From inaccessible PDFs to fragmented mobile platforms, digital accessibility today feels like navigating a labyrinth. In this dual-perspective session, Jason Tan and Michael Bervell explore the thorniest challenges in both mobile and web accessibility -- and how emerging AI techniques, automation strategies, and platform shifts are changing what’s possible.

They begin with mobile: an arena full of friction, from the lack of concrete native accessibility standards to tooling fragmentation across iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter. Through mythological analogies and practical examples, we’ll unpack what makes mobile accessibility so uniquely hard -- and what an ideal tooling ecosystem might look like.

Then they transition to the web, where AI is making significant strides. They'll show how LLMs and human-in-the-loop design are already streamlining accessibility tasks like alt text generation, PDF remediation, and context-aware WCAG compliance. Along the way, we’ll share insights from cutting-edge studies on how AI boosts productivity, reduces burnout, and supports non-experts in making meaningful contributions to accessibility.

You will leave with:

• A deep understanding of the “Four Horsemen” of mobile accessibility complexity.
• A sense of what’s newly possible (and not yet possible) in AI-assisted accessibility workflows.
• Tangible practices for integrating automation and assistive AI into your own dev or audit workflows.

This session is for accessibility professionals, developers, and tech leads who want to level up their impact -- and have a little fun doing it.

Bring your questions. Bring your war stories. Join us for a deeply technical (and hopefully mythically entertaining) exploration into what’s next for digital accessibility -- on both mobile and web.

Presenter bios
Jason Tan is the co-founder and CTO of TestParty, a startup automating digital accessibility testing across platforms. Jason studied Computer Science, Economics, and Latin at Princeton, and previously worked as an iOS engineer at Twitch, where he encountered accessibility challenges during a live lawsuit.

At TestParty, he brings a uniquely technical and humanistic lens to mobile and web accessibility. Jason is passionate about building developer-first tools that don't just detect problems -- but help fix them.

Michael Bervell is the CEO and co-founder of TestParty, an AI-powered digital accessibility platform that automates WCAG remediation across web and mobile. He previously consulted on accessibility for Google and the United Nations and was awarded an NSF SBIR grant for advancing automated compliance technologies.

A published author and Harvard graduate, Michael's work sits at the intersection of AI, education, and inclusion. He’s passionate about building tools that make the internet equitable for everyone.

Accessibility
The presentation will have human captions [CC], not automatic captions. There will be an ASL interpreter.

For Aira Visual Interpreter access for the Blind and Low Vision community, download the Aira Explorer app on the Apple App Store or Google Play. For access in the physical space, the A11yNYC geofence should apply automatically.

To access the online webinar for audio description, use the A11yNYC Access Offer to call, or simply inform your Visual Interpreter that you'd like that offer applied when you connect.

Please let us know about any other accessibility requirements two weeks before the event.

Livestream
View on YouTube

Provided by Internet Society Accessibility SIG.

Location details
The event is on the 4th floor. Everyone must be accompanied to the event on the 4th floor. Because everyone needs to be escorted, please arrive early or on time. When you enter the ground floor, a representative from A11yNYC will be there to provide elevator access.
Attendees can enter on the third floor and go up the staircase, or request accommodation to go directly to the 4th floor. Thanks to Ben Ogilvie for making this possible! Let us know if you're coming!
The building is near several transit stops:
6 train

• Spring Street (non-accessible stop): 100 feet
• Canal Street (accessible stop): 0.4 miles

NQRW trains

• Prince Street (non-accessible stop): 0.2 miles
• Canal Street (accessible stop): 0.3 miles

M1 / M55 Bus lines

• Broadway/Spring Street stop: 500 feet

Cabs and rideshares can let passengers out right near the building entrance

Accreditation
All A11yNYC meetups are pre-approved for IAAP Continuing Accessibility Education Credits (CAEC).

Sponsors
Thanks to AKQA, Deque, Evinced, Equal Entry, and Fable for sponsoring. Want to be a sponsor? Contact meryl@equalentry.com