Label is an important piece of text that tells you what the purpose of the control is. Users can decide based on the label if clicking or activating the button will submit the form details or reset the form! 

Unique and descriptive labels must be provided for all types of controls.  

Adding visual labels is beneficial for all users but it is essential to remember to programmatically define the labels. A programmatically defined label will tell assistive technology users about the purpose of the control when they navigate between different controls on a web page or an application. In the absence of label, assistive technology will identify the control as unlabeled! Furthermore, off-screen labels should be avoided as they are not available for everyone! 

Labels can be provided in the form of text, images, symbols, text along with images or symbols. In the case of images used as labels, make sure that textual descriptions are added such that the information can be made available for assistive technology users! 

Generally, textual labels are provided for input fields, drop-downs, checkboxes, and radio buttons whereas symbols or icons are used for menus and buttons. It is recommended to place labels to the left or top of input fields and drop-downs and on the right of checkboxes and radio buttons.  

For Global Accessibility Awareness Day, (GAAD 2023), BarrierBreak ran a campaign “#LabelYourControls” as we believe Accessibility is a journey and labelling your controls is a crucial step of this journey when it comes to making your digital solutions accessible for people with disabilities! Our team shared helpful tips throughout the day i.e. 18th May, 2023 marking GAAD on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Download the 12 tips on how to #LabelYourControls on web, android and iOS and feel free to share these tips with your colleagues, friends, or anyone who may be interested in promoting accessibility. 

Download Now

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At BarrierBreak, we understand the importance of making technology accessible to everyone and we believe that accessibility should be a top priority for all companies. That’s why we offer a range of accessibility services designed to help people with disabilities access digital content, including websites, mobile apps, and other digital products.

Our accessibility solutions are designed to help companies of all sizes and industries create digital products that are accessible to everyone.

If you’re attending CSUN 2023, be sure to stop by Booth 1006 to learn more about our packages and how we can help you create more accessible digital products.

We are the leaders in offshore digital accessibility specializing in Accessibility Testing, VPAT Creation, Accessibility Consulting and Accessible Documents. BarrierBreak’s People First approach includes people with disabilities as a part of our testing process. Every team consists of people with disabilities that are trained accessibility testers and specialists.

Come and learn about the packages to support your Accessibility needs. Meet our team at Booth 1006 at CSUN 2023

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There are a number of reasons for this, including the lack of awareness about the rights of people with disabilities and the lack of infrastructure and support services. However, the most significant barrier to inclusion is the attitudinal barriers that exist within society.

Marking the International Day of Persons with Disabilities observed on the 3rd of December, Kiran Somvanshi from Economic Times speaks with Shilpi Kapoor, CEO, BarrierBreak, corporate lawyer Amar Jain, and Yogesh Desai, Chief Executive Officer at Helen Keller Institute for Deaf & Deafblind to discuss the various challenges that people with disabilities in India go through.

In this special morning brief podcast by ET Bureau, Shilpi Kapoor shares her thought on how tech can be a blessing for people with disabilities. She shares how technology is moving towards becoming more inclusive and thus ensuring people with disabilities get included in the society and mainstream. She explains web accessibility as “providing people a choice of doing something the way they want to do it using the technology they want to use.”

Listen to the podcast to know more about the laws for people with disabilities, how diversity helps and the ground reality for people with disabilities in India.

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It is estimated that 15% of the global population are people with disabilities and this number significantly increases to 53% when families of those living with disabled people with disability are taken into account. Around the world, people with disabilities face countless challenges on a daily basis. In addition to physical and societal barriers, they often experience discrimination and exclusion – which is why it’s so important to ensure that they have a voice in society.

The Valuable 500 is a global initiative that’s working to do just that: give a voice to people with disabilities. Founded by social entrepreneur Caroline Casey the Valuable 500, is the largest community of Global CEOs committed to disability inclusion in business.

The Valuable 500 was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2019 and some of the biggest global businesses have joined the campaign for inclusion. On International Women’s Day 2022, the Valuable 500, launched the world’s first independently expert reviewed global directory of B2B consultants and service providers specialized in disability inclusion and accessibility. It is a global business collective made up of 500 CEO’s and their companies, innovating together for disability inclusion.

BarrierBreak is proud to be signing up recently to The Valuable 500 along with some global leaders such as Google, Intel, Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Barclays, Deloitte, HSBC, IBM, Lloyds, Adobe, Oracle etc to name a few.

Shilpi Kapoor, CEO & Founder, BarrierBreak commented – “BarrierBreak believes and has always been working towards inclusion and are proud to be on board with the Valuable 500’s global inclusion movement. We have delivered top class digital accessibility services to our customers across the globe for over 20+ years and we are committed to make a difference globally and catalyze a positive change in the field of digital accessibility.”

On being collaborated with the Valuable 500, our customers can be assured our commitment to quality, innovation, accessibility and excellent customer service is stronger than ever. With a team where 65% are employees with disability, we are proud to join the companies in the Valuable 500 and help break down barriers and create a limitless future.

We at BarrierBreak are committed to work diligently to uphold the high standards set by the Valuable 500 and hope to continue to surpass our clients’ expectations.

For more information please visit: www.thevaluable500.com

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One way that we support organizations is by providing accessibility testing by a team of skilled accessibility testers. This team comprises of disabled testers also! We invest highly in training and mentoring our accessibility testers. I wouldn’t even be exaggerating if I said that a large number of the early accessibility professionals in India, have been connected with BarrierBreak, whether being our employees, attending the accessibility training programs or then inspired by what we are doing.

I had hoped that over the course of the years, the number of professionals focusing in this area would increase. But I believe the trend is slow and often that is due to the demand of the IT companies. As Shwetank Dixit, once said to me, “We need to make Accessibility Cool”. Everytime I remember this conversation between us, I smile and grin and say “Yes, It is cool! It should be cool!”

But today, in India, the professionals that we find fall in a few buckets:

• Catch them Early – Hire freshers, they probably have never even heard of the term and inspire them.  Invest in them and provide them the training on accessibility. For me accessibility has always been go back to the basics whether its HTML, coding or anything. It’s a good place to start. If you can inspire them early, then you have a winner! I know we have a lot of people from BarrierBreak, who fall in this bracket!
• Professionals who have done 1 or 2 projects in their career – We find a lot of these professionals in the industry today who have been on projects where Accessibility was an ask, so they learnt a little and managed to deliver. Its more about the industry requirement. They haven’t been convinced on accessibility to make it a part of their DNA. But they have tried something! We get a lot of CVs which fall in this bracket, how do we convert them to accessibility believers?
• Professionals who are inspired – These professionals might have encountered Accessibility maybe in their job but then they bought in to the idea! They believed that Accessibility should be there, it shouldn’t be an option. They lobby within their projects and team for accessibility! We are looking these people, don’t wait, give us a shout!

Internally, at BarrierBreak, we live and breathe accessibility! It is our primary mantra! From day one, this is what our employees learn, we instill in them the need to take accessibility beyond their work. I smile when I hear some of them share about how they feel about accessibility, how they talk to their family members about it, how even if they left BarrierBreak, they would continue to focus on accessibility.

Accessibility is in their DNA!

• If you want to be inspired,
• If you want to live and breathe accessibility,
• If you want to to make a difference every day in your life
• If you want to include people with disabilities with your work in every day life
• If you have an urge to learn more on accessibility
• If you want to do, not 1, not 5 but 50 projects a year on accessibility,

We are looking for Accessibility Testers to Accessibility Consultants, write to us at hr@barrierbreak.com or call at +91-22-26860485/6/7 Ext – 105.

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On the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and The India Business and Disability Network (IBDN) launched a compendium on ‘Ensuring Inclusion Response to COVID19 – Good Practices by Industry’. The compendium is a documentation of inclusive and supportive measures adopted by select companies for employees with disabilities and/or for the disability community in the wake of the pandemic. This Compendium by CII and IBDN captures some of the practices adopted by various organizations in India in ensuring the inclusion, safety and well-being of people with disabilities during the pandemic.

“I hope that this Compendium will throw light on ways to strengthen the inclusion agenda. Companies can adopt, replicate and scale up some of the practices mentioned in this Compendium to create a more inclusive and diverse workforce.” Piruz Khambatta Chairman, CII National Committee on Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities 2020-21 and IBDN, and Chairman and Managing Director, Rasna Pvt Ltd.

“The Compendium is exactly the kind of initiative that will contribute to a disability-inclusive response to the pandemic.” Esteban Tromel, Senior Disability Specialist, International Labour Organisation.

Here is a small snippet of the initiatives taken by BarrierBreak to ensure safety of its employees besides ensuring business continuity.

Considering that a large number of BarrierBreak’s workforce comprises employees with disabilities, the company had decided to move to work from home even before the first lockdown. Initially, since people did not realise the impact of the outbreak of Coronavirus, employees with disabilities were hesitating to work from home. However, at the management level, the organisation had realised that the risk to health was high and had initiated work from home before the first lockdown by the government. This helped the organisation get a headstart, and the IT teams were able to go to the houses of employees to help set up work-from-home offices.

“As a company focusing on digital accessibility consulting, we are proud to say that our employees with disabilities have not been adversely affected in the lockdown. Instead, we are now confident of hiring people with disabilities across India and not limited to Mumbai only, since we have seen the positive side of technology.” Shilpi Kapoor, CEO BarrierBreak

Access to necessary technologies, internet allowances, dedicated online IT helpdesk, Weekly accessible activities, Accessible online demonstrations and training helped the employees with disabilities adapt quickly and effectively. Even in the Pandemic, the organisation hired new employees with disabilities and onboarded them successfully across India.

To know about the initiatives taken by various companies across India during this pandemic time to ensure inclusion, download the compendium.

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According to me, happiness is something we experience when we spend time with our near and dear ones. For example, going to a picnic with office colleagues, meeting friends and family, travelling and experiencing different parts of India

But often the assumption is that people with disabilities can’t enjoy these things independently. I have a visual impairment. Till now, I have mainly travelled with my family.

Well, after joining BarrierBreak, as an Accessibility Tester, I finally realized that even I can enjoy these things and yes with colleagues who have become friends. I have felt a new sense of confidence that I can manage on my own, I can go out on my own.

Experience of Strength in Numbers

As one of my colleagues Kamran said, when we go out to a restaurant as a single visually impaired person, we are often dismissed by the management. But when we go out as a group, we can’t be ignored and above all since we all have varied levels of vision, we all have our strengths and overcome the obstacles with amazing hacks!

So, I would like to share some travel experience, that some of us colleagues enjoyed in the last one year. So you would be wondering, no major feat! But for all of us, it opened the world of travel. So here it is.

We are a group of colleagues and almost all of us are visually impaired.

For sure a question might come to your mind that “How can visually impaired plan a trip without any sighted person and enjoy themselves?”

Yes, it is possible and doable. What it needs is nothing but proper use of technology, intelligence and diligence.

Where did we travel to?

In last one year, we planned three such trips. Would you like to know the destinations? Here it goes:

• Assangoan: A farm house
• Goa: A state of beaches
• Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar: Place filled with natural beauty

How to Plan?

Within our group some of our colleagues have hand on experience on technology, few are good planners, some have great communication skills and others are great entertainers like, singing, playing instruments and many more.

We distribute the work between us and plan to make the trip successful. Which happens every time!

Did we do some activities?

Oh yes, we did. Our visual impairment didn’t stop of from having any of the fun! We didn’t even think about how can we do this, what will be the challenges, nothing!

Everyone has talent like singing, being humorous, writing/telling poetry, etc. But you would be shocked to know that:

• In Assangoan, we enjoyed ourselves with swimming, dancing, , playing games and spent memorable time together
• In Goa, we did Water sports, shopping and much more
• And the last, but not least is Panchgani, it was very exciting trip that we had. We did horse riding, boat ride, laughing competition, and many more. We even enjoyed an accessible museum for.

From this trip we strengthened our bond and have made friends for life.

From my own side, I can tell you, that with each trip, I became more confident, more adventurous and ready to try new things in life.

So to everyone out there with or without a disability, plan a trip not only with friends, family, but also with colleagues. Build Bonds, Overcome mindsets, Do things that you haven’t done before and experience life and happiness!

Need our assistance on technology? We are BarrierBreak 

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A social entrepreneur with a passion for technology and disability, Shilpi Kapoor started BarrierBreak with a vision to make technology accessible for people with disabilities. BarrierBreak focuses on digital accessibility and were the pioneers to start the conversation around web accessibility in India.

Today, Shilpi with a team of 200+ accessibility experts with more than 65% of them having a disability, she has successfully built a sustainable business model in web accessibility testing & accessibility consulting servicing companies globally.

“Making websites and mobiles apps accessible to people with disabilities is critical to creating an inclusive web. Companies need to start to look at the business opportunity that the 1 billion people with disabilities provide.

At BarrierBreak, we understand people with disabilities. Accessibility is in our DNA, our teams include people with disabilities. In addition, we have been working in the space of digital accessibility since 15+ years!

For our customers, our focus & understanding of disability, our technical understanding of the web accessibility standards and guidelines and our years of experience serving customers globally make the difference.” says Shilpi Kapoor.

About Women Transforming India (WTI Award)

Hon’ble Defence Minister of India Shri Rajnath Singh presented the WTI Awards by Niti Aayog to the trailblazing 15 women entrepreneurs.

The WTI Awards 2019 received over 2,300 applications of which the Top 30 and then the Final 15 were shortlisted through a three stage evaluation process consisting of independent assessment and Jury and Super Jury Rounds.

To know more about the WTI Awards 2019 and the 15 amazing women role models Read the Press Release by Niti Aayog.

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BarrierBreak, a social enterprise that has established a leadership position in the space of accessibility and assistive technology and Samaage, an organization that creates systems for social change, today announced a partnership to deliver an array of mobility and independent living solutions for the blind and visually impaired people. These solutions are specifically tailored to seamlessly navigate and interact with indoor spaces while having access to critical information within these spaces. They are intended to assist people with disabilities to overcome employment barriers and become self-sufficient and independent contributing members of society.

The partnership brings together BarrierBreak’s deep expertise and decades of experience in providing accessibility solutions for the disabled using assistive technology with Samaage’s young and talented minds to deliver new age solutions to enhance inclusivity, improve educational experiences, and create employment enablers.

Speaking about the partnership, Shilpi Kapoor Founder and CEO BarrierBreak, commented “It is heartening to see that young companies like Samaage are taking interest in the accessibility space.  We see a lot of synergies in the kind of work that we are doing with Newz Hook, 6by6 and Samaage’s vision. We are impressed with their ability to create innovative technology solutions for the disability market. We are excited to support this young and dynamic team which brings fresh perspectives and cutting-edge technologies to help address critical needs in our industry.”

Kabir Nagral, Founder and CEO of Samaage said: “We are delighted to partner with BarrierBreak to jointly deliver solutions that can help address large scale human problems in society. Our Inner Vision platform is intended to enable people with disabilities to independently and fully utilize the spaces they live in, work in, and travel to, but is also designed for everyone in society to use. Together with BarrierBreak’s pioneering solutions, stellar reputation, and visible brand, we have the potential to transform the lives of people with disabilities”.

For more information visit www.barrierbreak.com

For more information visit www.samaage.com

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