The following blog post was written by Paul Nyhan, a staff writer with the Microsoft Accessibility Blog. Paul is a 20-year journalism veteran who has written extensively about disability issues.

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On May 15th we will celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, a great opportunity to help people understand the importance of making websites, software and other elements of the digital universe accessible to all users.

Three years ago, a web developer and an accessibility professional joined forces to launch the first Global Accessibility Awareness Day because they realized there wasn’t enough information about digital accessibility.

“This will be a day of the year where web developers across the globe try to raise awareness and know-how on making sites accessible,” web developer Joe Devon wrote in a 2011 blog post that launched the event. “On this day, every web developer will be urged to test at least one page on their site in an accessibility tool. After fixing up the page, they are urged to blog about what they changed and inspire others to follow suit.”

What else can you do? Organizers recommend:

Hold a free talk or Meetup about digital accessibility. Organize a demonstration of an aspect of accessibility. Be creative and develop another activity that highlights the importance of digital accessibility and how to improve access.
Go mouseless on your computer for an hour.
Learn about accessibility features in Windows and other operating systems.
Write a blog post that covers the May 15th event and the commitment of your organization or company to digital accessibility.

- Source: Global Accessibility Awareness Day.

You can find other ideas at Participate in Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Experience Accessibility First-Hand on May 15.