Global Accessibility Awareness Day takes place on the 18th of May. Its purpose is to raise awareness about the accessibility of digital products for users with disabilities.

It is important not to confuse accessibility with availability -- the latter refers to the technical performance, the ability of a server to respond to a client’s request. Accessibility describes the convenience of a website, software or an app for people with special needs, disabilities or diseases, the very possibility to be used by such people.

It’s not always easy to imagine the problems and limitations they have to deal with. For example, blind people use screen readers that turn text into speech and vocalize interfaces so that the user could interact with it. And that means ads are read along with the useful content. Some screen readers are able to skip ads on a web page that is designed according to the accessibility standards. But a lot of web pages fail to meet these standards.

Ads annoy sighted people, but for the blind and visually impaired they might be a huge waste of time and a serious obstacle to completing their tasks on the web. Advertisers rarely think about such users, and even if an ad is relevant, it can link to a web page of low accessibility.

Meanwhile, for a blind person, the ability to use websites and apps may be a key to the full-fledged life and communication with other people and provide the means to make money as a freelancer or a remote worker.

We hope that the AdGuard web filter is able to improve the quality of life for blind and visually impaired persons and to make the use of websites and apps more comfortable and efficient. We offer a 100% discount on AdGuard to such people. In order to use it, please submit your email address on this page: AdGuard.com/en/promotion.html. Valid until May 21, 2017.

We would also like to encourage developers, webmasters, designers and other professionals not to forget about the needs of people with disabilities. These people can become devoted and thankful users of a product designed with their needs in mind? World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to help you make highly accessible websites and apps.