CSUNATC 2025 Recap

This post only covers my impressions and experiences from CSUNATC. Others probably had dramatically different experiences.

Talk Types

The talks seemed to fall into three broad categories this year: product pitches, vendor room sessions (which were product and service pitches), and ‘AI’ talks.

Vendor Rooms

For the most part, if a talk was in a vendor’s room, I skipped it. Years of experience at CSUNATC has taught me that I will spend 40 minutes listening to an overt pitch, a thinly-veiled pitch, or 20 minutes of basic information and then 20 minutes of an overt pitch. I attended one talk in a vendor room and was proven correct. Granted, that was not a statistically significant number, but I had no interest in trying again.

What made it more frustrating was that, as Chancey noted, while I had opted out of vendor emails, vendor bouncers still insisted on scanning my badge. Even after I colored over it with a Sharpie (which meant I couldn’t share it with, say, Andrew Hedges when I wanted to, which makes Pat’s idea compelling). I had to threaten to block all emails from their entire domain before they backed down.

Pitches

I hit a handful of talks that were little more than beginner-level content that quickly pivoted into explanations for how the speaker’s product or service could solve that lightly-addressed concern. It felt like some phoned it in.

There were clearly people in the audience who got value from these, particularly existing customers. Questions, however, tended to be tech support if they were customers. If they weren’t customers, then some questions felt like plants from competitors asking loaded questions and citing another vendor. Also debates over technical correctness (the best kind of correctness).

‘AI’ Talks

It felt to me that CSUNATC talks this year were heavily skewed toward ‘AI’, regardless of what the term meant. Some presenters did an entire talk about tried-and-true methods or approaches, and then shoe-horned a slide or two into their decks to speculate how ‘AI’ could help. Some talks were, as expected, sales pitches for an ‘AI’ tool. I skipped those.

At nearly every talk, the presenters mismanaged the clock. As did those asking questions, because of course people wanted to more-of-a-statement about ‘AI’. In one session I watched someone stand up and disagree with the presenter on what constituted ‘AI’ (and kept doing it). Then others in the audience disagreed with that person. In the end, the session nearly devolved into a debate among presenters and assorted audience members.

Best Talk

The best talk I saw was from Lainey Feingold. And I don’t say this simply because I consider her a friend. Her session every year is one of the most-attended (and usually in too small a room).

But this year Lainey’s legal update talk stood out because she did something none of the other talks I saw did — she acknowledged the hurt our industry is going through thanks to the new administration. She made it clear that it’s ok to feel how we feel. But what really stood out was this quote, which seemed to serve as a balm for folks in the audience who might otherwise feel powerless:

Staying the accessibility course is resistance right now.

Lainey received a standing ovation in the largest room in the venue.

Event App

This year CSUNATC had an app to help attendees manage events. I did not install it because I don’t install apps when the web version can do the same thing.

My biggest complaint about the app (web version) was that it did not allow me to select multiple events per time slot. CSUNATC has a long history of turning attendees away from sessions when the room fills up, so having one or two back-ups sessions is a necessary feature. Instead, I filled my calendar with the events and simply moved to the next in my queue when I was blocked from my first choice.

Venue

CSUNATC is still in Anaheim at the Marriott around the corner from Disney.

Accessibility

I understand there is a cost to providing CART services (live captions) for every session (though that cost drops with fewer sessions). Either way, I expect presenters at an accessibility conference to do better even if the venue is limited. Too many instances of reliance on visuals, terrible audio, and the challenges of a crowded physical space to make everyone there feel truly included. Granted, some of us in the audience aren’t much help.

If you are interested in some more insights, folks shared their thoughts in the walled-garden A11y Slack. AudioEye pressed an attendee into gathering this, likely to turn around and present it as its own insights to CSUNATC organizers (no free labor for overlay vendors).

Every year I end up helping people find stuff or navigate the venue. I am not alone, as it was not uncommon for a hallway chat to end as someone abruptly left to help a stranger get to a place. I only call it out this year because it was my first time leading nine (9) people at once, all while using my college-level broken Spanish (which is now toddler level). Me in my green mask as the cowcatcher with a train of nine white canes through tight hallways. Wow was it loud.

Food

The venue is, to me, still a food desert. I travel with my own food and supplement it with the options from CVS (hard-boiled eggs, cheese, some fruit, fruit smoothies). I only found out on my last day there was a vegan food court some distance away (and I’m not vegan, I just wanted not-limp vegetables). As it is, I shouldn’t have to sneak through a loading dock in a gated resort to get plain white rice with a steamed vegetable medley topped with black pepper as the only spice.

Masks

Almost none. I gave away a few N95s each day, but for the most part this was an unmasked event distributed across packed rooms with seemingly low airflow. As in previous years, a super-spreader event. If the attendees don’t choose to mask for an audience that has a higher percentage of people at risk, it’s hard for me to expect the venue to mandate it. I continue to be saddened by that weird dichotomy in this industry.

Overlays at CSUNATC Again

I am again disappointed that overlay vendors are allowed at CSUNATC.

I understand Gabby Giffords name-checked AudioEye during the keynote. I suspect AudioEye made a donation to her husband’s campaign, being headquartered in Arizona. I also understand AudioEye held a mixer after the keynote, suggesting coordination between the two. This is, of course, my opinion for those AudioEye lawyers who are reading this, given AudioEye is prone to sue people for valid criticism.

Last year AudioEye had a fireside chat slot that didn’t happen. This year I understand the fireside chat happened but I have heard nothing about it. I continue to be disappointed in CSUNATC and its organizers for platforming it, and I judge the people from D2L, Yahoo, ETS, and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP who have chosen to share a stage with AudioEye.

It has been a year since AudioEye settled its frivolous SLAPP against me, but every day people asked about — in some cases timidly because they don’t want to tempt the bully that is AudioEye. Interestingly, many of them used this to segue into thanking me for calling out Deque, which is not an overlay company even if it’s now using some of the same messaging. I mention this here because someone predicted a timeframe before Deque becomes one.

Meanwhile, UserWay still has its presence in the dealer hall under the Level Access banner.

I was evaluating a low-vision product at one vendor’s booth and brought up its web site so I could buy the $800 USD piece of hardware on the spot. Then I saw it had the UserWay overlay. I explained why I would not complete the purchase, provided an overview of the harms of overlays, mentioned the class action suit against UserWay / Level Access, and suggested they walk around the floor to gauge how people feel about overlays.

Free Consulting

I spent time with three different companies giving them feedback on their accessibility-related products. In each case, I was asked. I didn’t just walk up to their booths and start throwing out unsolicited nonsense (it was solicited nonsense).

What was nice about each product was that they looked at improving workflows for testers, reviewers, reporters, remediators, and so on. They provided actionable steps and insights. They made no promises about coverage. They weren’t lying.

What was less good was that each had some obvious (to me) WCAG violations in their user interfaces. They each had folded an LLM into the mix as well, with (in my opinion) various levels of utility. I get that the market (well, those with little practical experience) wants it.

I’m sharing this because I want to remind people that there are still companies trying, innovating, and helping. You aren’t stuck using one of the big vendors. If nothing else, evaluating these companies (which I plan to do some more) gives you leverage against the lock-in the bigger players rely on for their business models.

Wrap-up

I recognize I am not the audience for a lot of these talks. Some are incredibly specific to work I don’t do. Some are generalist and intro talks that don’t bring me much value. Some are for industries I don’t support. Some are for products I don’t use. And so on. It’s not fair for me to judge those talks on accessibility content.

It also seems like this post is a complaint. Sure, there is lots I would love to fix, but I’m acknowledging challenges and issues for those who may be thinking about going. All that said, I still love the event and plan to continue to attend for as long as the people who really care about this work continue to show up.

After all, the true value for me isn’t the talks. It’s the hallway conversations. It’s looking over the products in the dealer room. It’s the rapid-fire spitballing of ideas and solutions that you can’t have as easily in a text chat or video call. It’s meeting the people who work alongside us in this space and recognizing they are facing the same headwinds. It’s the de facto support group we find ourselves pulled into when we may need it most.

Resources

Christopher Phillips made a big list of talks and their slides as Google spreadsheet. It is nowhere near complete, so if you have links for slides to any talks, please add them.

I shared only the PowerPoint slides for the W3C AGWG presentation WCAG 3: The True Story!.