How to Comply With Web Accessibility

The web should be accessible to everyone, right? Well, using web content is not such an easy task for all users. This is why web accessibility is being addressed
in local regulations and practices. Read on to learn about how to comply with web accessibility guidelines, and ensure all users can enjoy the content of your site.

What Is Web Accessibility?

Web accessibility is the practice of designing a website in a way that makes it possible for everyone to use it, including people with disabilities. Web accessibility aims to cover all types of disabilities affecting access to the Web, such as auditory, cognitive, visual, speech and neurological.

The goal of web accessibility is to enable people to understand and interact with the web. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a list of requirements that ensure web content is accessible. WCAG’s guidelines are defined arond four guiding principles that ensure web content is:

• Perceivable — you should present the content in the way the users can perceive it. This means adapting the content without losing information. Another guideline requires the content to be easily distinguishable by the user. For example, ensuring that the text or images are distinguishable from the background.

• Operable — the user should be able to navigate and operate the functionality from a keyboard. It also requires presentations and videos to display text with enough time for the users to read it.

• Understandable — the user should be able to understand the content easily. Diagrams should have easy to read fonts. Audio and video should have a clear pronunciation of words.

• Robust — this means that content should be compatible with all types of users, including the non-human variety. For example, search algorithms and assistive technologies.

Who Can Benefit From It?

Accessibility provides access to web content for people with disabilities. Some of the disabilities covered by the WCAG guidelines include:

• Visual impairment — this can include low-vision, blindness, and color-blindness.
• Hearing impairment — including diminished hearing and deafness.
• Cognitive impairments — this includes learning disabilities, dyslexia, and ADHD.
• Age-related impairments — changing abilities, reading slowly.
• Seizure disorders — such as epilepsy.

Accessible technology benefits all users. For example, alternative text benefits people who cannot use images due to enhanced security. High-contrast images and texts are useful to follow the content in places with low light. The captions enable users to watch a video without sound in noisy or busy environments. Actually, watching videos with the sound off is trending.

Why Should You Comply With Accessibility Guidelines?

In a word—lawsuits. Accessibility is enforced by local regulations. In Canada, Sections 504 and 508 require government-funded programs and activities to provide accessibility for all content, including web content.

During 2018, US-based lawsuits related to web disability issues tripled. Most of the complaints focused on the lack of accessibility for visually impaired people, violating Title III of the American with Disabilities Act. This section prohibits to discriminate on the basis of disability in every business activity that is open to the public. This includes restaurants, movies, and websites.

Best Practices for Achieving Accessibility

1. Use alternative text (alt-tags)
The alternative text attribute is a short text that describes an image. It is different from a caption because it is hidden from the user. This description is read by screen readers, providing visually impaired people with details about visual content.

2. Keyboard Navigation
You should ensure the user can navigate your website using only the keyboard. For example, don’t use animation on navigation buttons if they cannot be operated by a screen reader.

3. Add captions to all videos
Closed captions not only transcribe the dialogs but describe other sounds in the video or audio. Closed captions and subtitles are extremely useful for users watching the video with the sound off.

4. Don’t change the HTML Tags
Don’t reinvent the wheel, use buttons for buttons instead of anchors. Use the anchors for links. Changing this default order can confuse screen readers.

5. Add a transcription
Transcriptions are useful for podcasts or audio records. Transcriptions help hearing-impaired people know what your podcast is about, but also help search engines find it. This is why most YouTube videos show a transcript below the video screen.

6. Use the Title Tag
Many developers don’t use the HTML title tag, and many browsers don’t display it. It is very useful for screen readers to tell the user about the page content.

7. Please, avoid autoplay
When uploading a video to your page, disable the autoplay feature. Yes, it is comfortable to have the video playing as soon as the page loads, but it disorients people who use a screen reader. The sound of the video overlaps the voice of the screen reader, confusing the user.

8. No flashing
Flashing content can be problematic for people suffering from epilepsy or migraines. There are a number of tools online that can help you check your video content for flashing images. One of them is the Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool.

9. Provide audio descriptions
Just as the alternative text provides a description of an image, the audio description does the same with videos. Visually impaired people can follow a movie with a spoken audio track that tells them what is happening. The audio description play along with the video including all visual information.

10. Build accessibility from the start
The ideal is to design the website with accessibility in mind. Having the guidelines present can help developers avoid potential problems. The website can be attractive and accessible

The Bottom Line

Technology is making it possible to deliver engaging content to different groups of users. Automatic captioning, transcriptions and audio descriptions help all types of users access and interact with the web. This is not only a matter of regulations. Accessibility makes your content more engaging and adaptable, giving websites a competitive advantage over their competitors.