San Jose-based Adobe on Wednesday marked the 33rd anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as well as National Disability Independence Day, by publishing a blog post in which the company highlights its accessibility work and much more.
The post was penned by Adobe’s accessibility boss Andrew Kirkpatrick.
“Adobe has been a longtime champion in building tools and experiences that aim to include everyone. To increase inclusion in the digital world, we are committed to developing our technologies in a thoughtful and ethical way, true to our core values,” he wrote of the company’s ethos around accessibility and serving the disability community.
Among the callouts in Adobe’s piece is an item that have been the subject of coverage in this column. Kirkpatrick mentions the new Auto-Tag API for PDF documents that was announced in May, as well as other projects such as the Bluelines training course that he said “[helps] designers create user interfaces that are accessible and inclusive of the needs of people with disabilities.” Kirkpatrick also gives a shoutout to the company’s Firefly technologies, which are a family of generative AI tools focused on generating images and text effects. For accessibility, Kirkpatrick noted Firefly’s UI was built to be accessible from the beginning in an effort to “[give] people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers the power to create like never before.”
Besides trumpeting Adobe’s own work, Kirkpatrick dedicates a sizable chunk of his post to the ADA’s broader societal impact. He cites anticipated legislative action geared towards making the digital world more accessible to people with disabilities. For Adobe’s part, Kirkpatrick pledges the company remains staunchly committed to “[engaging] in the rule-making process and make advancements within and outside of Adobe to help remove barriers that create accessible experiences for all.”
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