 Today is Purple Tuesday, when companies and organisations commit to becoming more accessible and inclusive to disabled people. Sounds good right? Well, you'd think it would be a day of brands giving disabled people proof of how they've made their stores, sites and products more accessible and want to work with us, but instead we end up feeling more isolated and less significant to them. Unfortunately as with most big disability awareness days that happen on social media, the focus has been taken away from helping disabled people and instead become about brands patting themselves on the back. Instead of actual action brands all scramble to make posts with empty platitudes about how they love disabled people and not actually making any changes. As a result, they actually push disabled people further away by failing to even consider basic accessibility. Purple Tuesday calls for brands to make 'one new commitment to improve their accessibility and practice' for disabled people If you scroll through the hashtag #PurpleTuesday on Twitter, you'll find it's littered with images without alt-text and companies bragging about accessibility. Completely lacking in self-awareness that they're outing themselves as being unwelcoming to disabled people with this one action. There isn't even specific criteria that companies have to stick to in order to be part of Purple Tuesday, the organisation say that to get involved 'organisations must make one new commitment to improve their accessibility and practice, implement the improvement and join the global celebrations on 1st November 2022.' But in theory, it's very easy to pledge to commit to access by doing ju){kind=link}
As companies and organisations welcome Purple Tuesday, they still have to do more to make their stores, sites and products more accessible to disabled people, writes Rachel Charlton-Dailey
Today is Purple Tuesday, when companies and organisations commit to becoming more accessible and inclusive to disabled people.
Sounds good right?
Well, you’d think it would be a day of brands giving disabled people proof of how they’ve made their stores, sites and products more accessible and want to work with us, but instead we end up feeling more isolated and less significant to them.
Unfortunately as with most big disability awareness days that happen on social media, the focus has been taken away from helping disabled people and instead become about brands patting themselves on the back.