WHAT IS DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY?
Digital accessibility allows everyone, including the disabled, full access to digital content. Towards this end, accessibility standards - issued by recognized authorities and processed by usability engineers - are applied, for each type of impairment, to computer interfaces.
All users without exception will thus be able to Perceive - Understand - Navigate, and also Interact - Create content - Bring their contribution to the digital world.
In addition to its primary function - namely, the provision of content for all audiences, without discrimination - digital accessibility has many distinct advantages, which represent, just as many opportunities for companies and organizations, beyond a legal obligation.
THE CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY
Bringing disabilities and other impairments into the picture
Today, a lot of websites and interfaces are designed without consideration for the disabled and their user experience. Yet information technology is a real integration lever for this demographic, as it often provides them with extra independence. An accessible website or mobile application will necessarily be easier to use for valid persons.
Depending on the type of disability, the most commonly identified web usability issues differ - please find on the opposite page (or above, or below) a table summarizing these obstacles.
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VISUAL
- No optional text alongside images
- Identical links on the same page
- No alternatives for frames or scripts
- Low colour contrast
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MOTOR
- Non-adaptable keyboard
- Mouse and keyboard must be used simultaneously
-
HEARING
- Sound signs laid out without captions
- No subtitles on videos
-
COGNITIVE
- Structural elements of page are poorly utilized
- Lack of consistent navigational structure
1. Reaching the senior market
An accessible interface usually proves to be more intuitive and comfortable for its users – which of course include non-disabled people – than its non-accessible competitors. It can be accessed and used by everyone, including the hundreds of millions people worldwide with temporary or permanent disabilities.
It is also better suited to any physical degeneration – from mere sight or hearing fatigue to more serious, incapacitating diseases – which senior citizens may experience.
Senior citizens (people over 55 years old) currently represent 127.4 million people in Europe. A solid 13% of the US population is above 65 years old, 85% of which suffer from vision problems. And of course, as its population ages, web business is in transition.
Senior citizens, who hold about 70% of the wealth in Europe and whose overwhelming majority demands accessible websites, represent a key market for web companies.
2. Strengthening your brand image
At a time when organizations seek to maximize their brand’s image, the implementation of accessibility is an important way to highlight your civic responsibility to your shareholders, employees and the general public.
Certification is a strategic way to further reinforce your brand image and communicate this responsibility.
3. Promoting sustainable development
An accessible interface is also a more readable interface, and provides a potentially higher level of readability (with magnifying effects and speech features, for example) than books and papers. With more readability comes less unnecessary printing.
Accessibility also returns the human factor - the individual - where it deserves to be, which is back at the centre of any digital project.
Sustainable development seems to emerge as a groundswell, and for large companies, digital accessibility is part of that evolution. For example, over two-thirds of the top 250 listed French companies have initiated a general movement towards sustainable development and social responsibility.
4. Improving your ESG
The state of their extra financial rating (also known as ESG rating) is a growing concern for listed companies. One of the main concerns of the rating agencies’ criteria is that communication with stakeholders needs to be: Transparent - Accessible
The company’s general attitude as an employer is also considered. Adapting your intranet and online recruitment platform to all disabilities will naturally allow you to employ more people with disabilities. This will increase diversity in your workforce, cultivates a healthier, more tolerant working environment, and will also dramatically improve your ESG rating.
5. Improving your natural SEO
Digital accessibility facilitates access to content for all users, including search engines (insofar as search engines are considered “users”).
Of course, web accessibility alone does not guarantee a good rank in search engines. But, it will remove all barriers to indexing and visibility, and offer semantically correct - and therefore naturally optimized - text content.
6. Maximizing your website’s performance
You know all too well that your website’s performance depends a great deal on its compatibility with both current version and older version browsers. Also, its usability on other devices (smartphones, tablets, interactive kiosks, PDAs etc.) is becoming increasingly crucial.
The central issue in making your website accessible is ensuring it completely complies with existing web accessibility standards and mobile accessibility guidelines. The verification of this compliance is an opportunity to judge the usability of your website. It’s worth noting that responsive web design can also be accessible.
7. Reducing maintenance costs
A guideline of digital accessibility is to maintain a strict separation between content and presentation, which yields two major advantages: less time will be required for development, and more flexibility is offered by cascading style sheets.
Today it is possible to change the entire look of a site in a few minutes by simply changing the style sheet associated with it. This is impossible in anachronistic websites where the content and container are the same thing!
STANDARDS AND LAWS
Known as WCAG 2.1 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), the recommendations for making the World Wide Web accessible have been issued in 2008 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), through the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
Considered as the global standard, Version 2.1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines establishes three levels of accessibility:
- LEVEL A
The basic level, at which all Priority 1 accessibility criteria are met. The website offers basic access to information contained within the online documents;
- LEVEL AA
The level at which all Priority 1 and 2 accessibility criteria are met. The website offers “suitable” access to the information contained within the online documents, and a higher level of usability;
- LEVEL AAA
The level at which all Priority 1, 2 and 3 accessibility criteria are met. The website offers excellent access to information contained within the online documents, for an optimal level of usability.
In addition to these three priority levels, the WCAG 2.1 defines a binary of technology, which either supports or does not support web accessibility. If a technology does not support web accessibility, an HTML alternative must be arranged, but a single fully accessible version is always preferred.
Upgrading from WCAG 2.0 to 2.1
The WCAG standards in the 2.1 version are an extension of the 2.0 version, which means that if your website is built respecting the WCAG 2.1, it will also complies WCAG 2.0.
Accessibility audits have to comply with since June 2018.
This version boasts 17 new updates under 3 levels (A, AA and AAA). These mainly pertain to mobile interfaces, some voice tools, vision impairment and a number of cognitive disabilities.
Simple A level requirements:
Criteria |
Accessibility guideline |
---|---|
1- Alphanumeric keyboard shortcuts Using keyboard shortcuts made up of a single character key can be confusing for Speech Input users who can accidentally trigger an action, or a series of actions, by voicing a sentence or specific commands. It can also affect some people with motor disabilities who can initiate an action by accidentally pressing a key. |
|
2- Labels or tags |
It consists in ensuring that component’s label corresponds to the accessible label (aria label for example) in order to effectively activate this element via the voice command. |
3- Cancelling an action The purpose of this criterion is to ensure that actions cannot be accidentally triggered |
An example how to apply this criterion would be to provide the user with a mechanism to cancel an action. |
4- Complex gesture functionalities Users with motor disabilities may be inconvenienced when a feature requires the use of a complex gesture (several fingers for example). |
Provide an easy to use alternative such as links and buttons. |
5- Motion detection Activate some features on mobile devices through motion detection. |
Ensure that:
|
AA level requirements
Criteria |
Accessibility guideline |
---|---|
6- Orientation Detect screen orientation to facilitate the user’s viewing experience. |
Make sure that the device’s orientation is not locked; the user must be able to switch from portrait mode to landscape mode and vice versa. |
7- Easy Input Completing a form must not demand a sustained memorisation effort. |
This is to ensure that an authentication process does not depend solely on the user’s ability to remember their password, for example by providing an alternative way to retrieve their password or to authenticate themselves otherwise. |
8- Redesigning content |
|
9- Contrast in graphic design Set the right contrast ratio to enhance the user’s visual experience. |
Two contrast ratios are required: 4.5 in general and 3 for graphic elements with dimensions that are at least equal to 3 pixels. |
10- Contrast in User Interface design It is a necessary step to ensure that there is sufficient contrast on the interactive components: links, buttons, icons, images, etc. |
Two contrast ratios are required: 4.5 in general and 3 for elements with dimensions that are at least equal to 3 pixels. |
11- Adjusting the text |
This is to ensure that no content is lost when the user customises certain text features. |
12- Content displayed when the mouse hovers over it |
The content displayed when the mouse cursor or focus is positioned on an element must be:
|
AAA level requirements
Criteria |
Accessibility guideline |
---|---|
13- Expiry of a user action |
When an action has a limited lifetime, ensure that there is a mechanism to notify the user. |
14- Interactive animations |
There must be a way to deactivate interactive animations unless they contain information. |
15- Cursor size |
The size of the cursor or pointer must be at least 44px except when an alternative mechanism such as a link or button, is proposed. |
16- Competing mechanisms |
This ensures that activation user has several ways to enable a feature. This criterion covers both voice command and keyboard and mouse activation. |
17- Message status This applies to messages that report a status update, for example, at the end of an action. |
Ensure that the message is clear without the need to focus. |
What about other countries?
The majority of countries (such as Europe) eventually adopted as reference the Double-A international standards WCAG 2.1. However, some countries have set up their own accessibility standards by selecting or completing the criteria of WCAG 2.1.
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GERMANY
BITV 2 -
AUSTRALIA
SECTION 5 -
ONTARIO
AODA -
UNITED KINGDOM
GDS Service Manual -
CANADA
Standard of web accessibility -
QUEBEC
SQGRI 008 -
USA
Section 508 -
FRANCE
RGAA 3.0