If you thought about document accessibility in the past but didn’t take action, it might be time to give it a second look. It’s a hot topic right now and there is a lot of coverage on PDF accessibility at tradeshows and events as well as in online articles. With the European Accessibility Act taking effect in June 2025 and the Section 508 language in the USA being strengthened from “you should do this” to “you MUST do this” now is a great time to review the thousands PDFs that are on your company’s website or in an archive to ensure that they are accessible to all customers, like those using assistive technologies due to a disability. .
Universal document accessibility is the practice of ensuring that digital documents are accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. In today's digital age, the many government regulations and country-specific accessibility acts requiring compliance, and the overwhelming global support for inclusivity have made it more important than ever to ensure that all individuals can access and use digital documents.
With approximately 16% of the global population having some sort of disability or impairment, it is easy to see why this would be important – it’s an opportunity to be inclusive and represents a growth opportunity. Not providing accessible documents is also a big risk — in 2023, plaintiffs filed over 4000 digital accessibilities lawsuits in the US alone! Plus, many companies have 1000s of PDFs on websites and being distributed via email, knowing that each one of those that are not accessible documents, could lead to a lawsuit, presents a huge risk.
What exactly is an accessible document? It’s a document created to be as easily readable by someone with a disability (i.e., low vision or non-sighted reader, cognitive issues, etc.) as a sighted reader or no disability. There are two main standards for governing this, one for PDFs and one for digital communications.
PDF/UA is a specification that defines how to make a PDF document readable by assistive technologies like a screen reader. A tagged PDF, or compliant PDF is usually referred to as "PDF/UA" (UA = Universal Accessibility) and it means the document is designed to ensure accessibility for people with visual, hearing and mobility impairments.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were developed for digital content like emails and websites and dictate that web content be capable of interacting with a variety of assistive technologies. Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), they are widely accepted as the go-to standard for digital accessibility compliance.
Additionally, because many countries have adopted document accessibility laws and those laws have fines and penalties attached for non-compliance, providing equitable access to information is now a top priority for many organisations. The market is being driven by these government regulations and resulting country-specific laws, and there is an overall increasing awareness about accessibility.
Some of the most well-known laws and regulations are now being more strictly enforced, resulting in fines and in some cases jail time (the CIO is often the one held responsible for compliance). The European Accessibility Act takes effect in 2025 and many European companies are already preparing for it. It's designed to ensure there are common rules for accessibility across all EU countries, and we are hearing it will be strictly enforced and non-compliance is not an option.
So why should companies make documents accessible? Ensuring accessibility is the right thing to do. By prioritising accessibility, you open your doors to a wider audience and foster inclusivity. There are laws for physical accessibility – think about a ramp at the entrance to a building – so it only makes sense to have laws for content accessibility too. Following are a few reasons to make your customer communication documents accessible to all:
- When a company is committed to accessibility, it shows that they value all individuals and are committed to inclusivity. This can enhance their brand reputation and attract customers who value diversity and inclusion.
- You don’t want to alienate any part of your customer base so communicating with all customers equally is important. Equally may not mean that information is consumed in the same way but, it means that the final understanding is equal.
- All public-facing documents must be accessible and since you cannot control where docs go after they are sent out (PDF – or Portable Document Format is by nature “portable”), everything must be accessible when it leaves your control.
- It results in better SEO -- website content is more “findable” when your content is accessible, and search engines ingest accessible formats better - improving your SEO.
- It’s the law and you want to avoid lawsuits and penalties, fines, etc.
Designing your customer communications with accessibility in mind should be a best practice, and you should have the right tools in place to make that a reality. Most customer communications software, including Quadient’s Inspire portfolio, can create accessible documents, emails, etc. Going forward I expect most large organisations are taking this into account at design time.
What about all of those archived documents that customers ask for on demand? What about all of those PDFs you’ve already sent out, have posted on the company website or stored? Post-composition remediation involves making existing documents accessible. With the right remediation software, you can take just about any historical document from a partner, company archive, or another external source and make them accessible. Quadient offers a remediation tool called Inspire Adapt. It converts PDFs to PDF U/A documents in both high-volume batch and on demand scenarios.
With post-composition software, combined with customer communications management software, documents can be made accessible in real-time and promptly presented on a device for seamless interaction with assistive technology.
The bottom line is this: universal document accessibility is critical for ensuring that digital documents are accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. It ensures equal access to information, meets legal and regulatory requirements, improves user experience, increases productivity and efficiency, enhances brand reputation, and meets the needs of customer segment.
