Notes # 30: AccessibleEU Monitoring Reports, Dubai Hotels, Guide Dogs vs. AI Glasses...

Personal Notes

I am using Goodreads to take notes on the books that I read and rate them. This is the most functional app that I have used because I remember every book that I rated or commented on Goodreads. The simplicity of the app is a great feature for me. However, last month something happened…

Normally, you can give a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5-star rating to a book, but with the last update, you can give half-star, and even quarter-star ratings to a book. And this causes one of the clearest target size problems that I have ever seen. Since the last update, I always have to review my rating because I mistakenly click the wrong place. For example, when I try to click 3.5, I click 3.75. I understand the idea of giving more space to readers to express their real ratings, but please be aware of accessibility.

News

Inspirations

In Detail: Key Takeaways From The AccessibleEU 2025 Monitoring Reports

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AccessibleEU prepared its 2025 monitoring reports separately for each country. Alongside the full reports, there are short dashboard documents that summarize the findings. A dashboard is enough if you want to learn about one country. But if you want to see the big picture across the EU, you have to open each country’s document and compare them yourself. Below are the takeaways from a combined document I put together with Claude’s help. I only kept the findings on digital accessibility.

• Countries have moved the EAA into national law. What about the Commission?: Every country report says the EAA requirements have been moved into national law, and that the Commission is now checking whether these laws are correct. There is no information on when the Commission will finish.

• There are audits, but do they work?: All 27 countries say they carry out audits. Yet in none of the countries with available data are more than 60% of public websites and mobile apps accessible. Only 5 countries stated improvement compared to previous years.

• Involving disabled people stays on paper: Only 2 countries give a concrete example of involvement of persons with disabilities in audit process. And only 9 of 27 countries make this involvement mandatory.

• Complaints are recorded, but we can’t see them: 13 of the 27 countries say they record digital accessibility complaints. Only 2 share actual numbers.

• Audits and awareness work, but no visible funding: 19 of the 27 countries share information about their audits, and 9 give details about awareness work. But only 2 countries give a concrete example of a budget for digital accessibility.

• There is training, but is it sufficient?: All 27 countries say digital accessibility training exists. Only 8 give details about their programs, and most of these are run by public agencies. Disabled people still have little say in these trainings.

• There is no common language for measuring accessibility: Some reports give the share of accessible websites, while others use the term “partially accessible.” Some go into detail about automated checks. Because the details and the wording are different, the countries can’t really be compared.

• Good indicators don’t mean good results: The reports score every country on 20 shared indicators across four areas: built environment, transport, ICT and public policy. In ICT, 15 countries look compliant on at least 15 of the 20. But as shown above, websites and mobile apps are still far behind.