I’ve been a quadriplegic woman my whole adult life. I know what it feels like when a space wasn’t built for you. The sidewalk that drops off without a curb cut. The door that requires two hands. The building entrance that technically has a ramp, except it’s around the back, past the dumpsters, because someone added it as an afterthought and didn’t think too hard about what that communicates.
You get used to reading those signals. You learn which spaces are saying come in and which ones are saying we didn’t think about you.
The internet was supposed to be different. And honestly? Sometimes it is. My assistive technology is how I run my business, write, collaborate, and work as an accessibility specialist. Online, I’m not stuck waiting for someone to hold a door. I can just go.
Except when I can’t.
June 4 is World Assistive Technology Day, part of the global “Unlock the Everyday” campaign. It exists because the digital world has a habit of recreating the exact same exclusions as the physical one. A website built without accessibility in mind isn’t a minor inconvenience. It’s a locked door. And I’ve been standing in front of enough locked doors in my life to know exactly how that feels.
It’s More Personal Than You’d Think
Accessibility gets discussed in terms of compliance checklists and technical specs. I get why – that framing has real legal and institutional weight. But it misses what’s actually at stake for people like me.
When a site is built right -when someone actually followed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – my tools just work. I can move through the interface the way anyone else does. And in those moments I get something that most people never have to think about: privacy. I can look something up, handle my finances, write something vulnerable, do anything, without needing to involve another person. Without having to explain myself or ask for help or give up any piece of my independence.
That’s what good accessibility gives me. Not convenience. Dignity.
And when a developer cuts corners on keyboard navigation, or doesn’t bother structuring their code properly? That’s gone. My tools freeze. I hit a wall. And I’m reminded, in the most direct possible way, that whoever built this thing didn’t think I’d be using it.
It’s not personal. I know that. But it lands personally every time.
This Isn’t a Small Problem
The World Health Organization estimates that 2.5 billion people need at least one assistive product. In low-income regions, only about 10% of those people can actually access what they need. This isn’t a niche use case. This isn’t a rounding error. We’re talking about billions of people being quietly locked out of the spaces where modern life happens.
Accessibility isn’t a feature you add when the budget allows. It’s not a post-launch patch or a box on a compliance checklist. It’s the entrance ramp, not the service entrance around back. If you’re building something for people to use, build it for everyone.
What I’m Actually Asking For
I’m not asking for special treatment. I’m asking for the web to be built like I exist.
The developers who do this well aren’t doing anything heroic- they’re just including disabled users in the process from the start, not handing us a finished product and asking if it works. That shift, from testing on us to designing with us, changes everything about what gets built.
The internet was supposed to level the playing field. That’s still possible. But it requires the people building it to actually decide that’s the goal — and then do the work to get there.
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